The Bogus Report

On occassion, us Bob's guys are required to write an article about the races we do. It was my turn to write about the Bogus Basin (World Championships) Hill Climb. Here's my pre-corrected recollection of how the race went up, in third person:

The 2007 Bogus Basin Hill Climb began with an immediate surge to speed set by ever present and powerful racers Bob Hoene and Joe Savola. Within a mile of the start, strongman and former Master’s World Champion Richard Feldman (Durance Cycleworks) jumped the field to set his own pace. One by one, various riders went to the front and set pace to keep Feldman within striking distance. Not long after passing the 6 mile marker (5 miles into the race), Feldman was brought back into the now very select front group of six. The select group of six began splintering not long after the 9 mile marker. By the 10 mile marker, six at the front were now down to three, Bob’s-Bicycles Matt Weyen, Feldman and BODE’s Eric Slack. Another mile up the road resulted in Slack popping off and fighting to get back on, no more than 15 seconds back of the final duo of Feldman and Weyen. At the 14 mile marker and with only half of a mile of climbing remaining, Weyen decided that it was time to test the waters and throw in an attack. Around 30 seconds later, Feldman was back on and within the minute laid down a counter-attack. Weyen was on Feldman’s wheel immediately at which point both men knew that it would be an even fight right up to the finish line. All the while, Slack was still within range of catching if the two front runners let up, so the pace had to be continued without any cat and mouse tactics. The race finishes at the Bogus Basin Ski Lodge after a one and a half mile flat section and for the first mile of flat land Weyen and Feldman worked evenly, taking short but fast pulls. With around a third of a mile to go, Feldman attacked into a sharp right-hander, immediately gaining two to three bike lengths on Weyen. The speeds at this point were 35+mph through the last few corners before the final 200+meters of straight away. Not long after the straight away presented itself Weyen caught and passed Feldman, crossing the line with a small, but hard fought gap. Slack rounded out the podium in 3rd, 50 seconds back. In 6th was Bob’s-Bicycles Justin Mayfield and Tad Hamilton finished 10th with a personal record time at the young age of 38.

Okay, so I forgot to mention that I had a short lived gap on Feldman. Didn't attack, just put the pressure on for a bit and looked back to find a gap that eventually got nullified.

Yeah, beating a World Champion (note the stripes on his sleeves) feels pretty good!

Results can be found here. Select "by time" to see all racers placings.

BTW, The 2007 season is officially over!

Made in the U.S.A. on 9/7/1979 - best if used by date: uh....

Yes, I'm going to get 365 days older all in 1 day! I've completed this task 27 times previously and it's not getting any easier. So, in light of this amazing feat of physics, I'm going to let everyone out there in interwebs land be creative and draw on this provided picture. What will happen to my face tomorrow? Will there be a new wrinkle? A tooth falls out? 1st gray hair? Maybe I'll grow a beard and join ZZ Top on tour?

"And go get yourself some cheap sunglasses" BTW, that song was also made in 79. Best if used by date: timeless

side note: remember, I did enjoy a wild and crazy 3+ months of the seventies.
On another side note, mi madre turns 60 on the 20th. If you happen to see her, you can give her a hard time about it too, but she might disown me if I post a pic of her on here for you to draw on too.
Luckily, cyclists usually experience their best years between about 27 and 30.

p.s. Stu's most recent blog is hilarious, check it out (up and to your right)

annonymous posting has been turned on

North Fork of the Clearwater pics

Last weekend was spent in some of the more amazing areas a person could spend a weekend. A few pictures do it more justice than writing about it. The kokanee were running very heavily, but are not interested in eating when in spawning mode which makes them impossible to catch with a fly. Also, they are reportedly not very tasty once they've turned red/orange. I got a few good pics of them. I'll add more pics when the clearwire connection clears up. BTW, having only fly fished twice in my life means that I'm still not especially good at it, but I did have a good size cutthroat trout on for a while until it broke my tie.

Almost got a good picture of Baldy in flight too, but I blurred it just a bit too much.

It Is The Natural Number Following 4 And Preceding 6

The evolution of our modern glyph for five cannot be neatly traced back to the Brahmin Indians quite the same way it can for 1 to 4.

Okay, now that I've bored you fully, the explanation will begin. 5 is a significant number for me now. Last year (2006), I hit the deck 4 times and that was my record number of wrecks in a year. 1 was caused all on my lonesome. That dirty little rock came out of nowhere and beat the crap outta me in some random Thursday night criterium over by the BSU stadium. 2 were in feedzones at the Elkhorn Stage Race. Another was on a training ride on the time trial bike. An oil slick in a corner on a wet day got the best of me. 4 seemed like such a big number of wrecks. I'd never gone flying so many times in 1 yr before, not even close. The plan was to stay on the bike without any wrecks this year to make up for such a big number last year. What do I do in the stead of not wrecking since you know that's what I'm getting to right? I top that performance by 1. Not only that, but I had to 1 up my most painful wreck too. Last years wreck at the stadium took considerable hide off of my hip and wasn't much fun to deal with, especially sleeping on one side for waaaay too long. Luckily it healed up really well and the scar is tiny and hard to find.

On to 2007. No wrecks until I make the trip to Silver City, NM.

Wreck 1: Guys get all worked up when the best in the U.S. show up and there were a few wrecks on the first day. This was on a course that warranted zero wrecks! I'd missed the 2 previous significant wrecks, but the 3rd started 2 riders in front of me and that dominos train came roaring my way. Busted a good pair of glasses in that wreck and lost minimal skin.

Wreck 2: Travel from super dry Boise, ID to perma-soaked Enumclaw, WA. Late May and I'm riding the bike for the first time in the rain in 2007. Made it through the criterium without wrecking, an amazingly wet crit! That was some of the hardest rain I've ever seen let alone ride in. Next day is the road race. What do I do? 5th lap out of 5, I over-cook a corner and touch a bit too much of the rain soaked paint lines. Front wheel started sliding and I had less than 1 second to decide where I was to land. The option of trying to last ditch effort save it was not there, I had to choose where to land and in a hurry. Luckily there was a nice patch of grass just before a fence right next to the road. Those cows got a sight that day! Grass stained and wind knocked out of me, I rolled into the finish a sorry looking sort.

Wreck 3: This one really hurt. On the 3rd day of the Mt. Hood Cycling Classic, after the stage, my teammate and I are riding back to the start line from the finish line. 30+mph into a headwind and trying to talk, he gets a bee in his helmet and our bars are crossed. I tried to unlock them, but didn't have enough time. The ground came way, way too quickly that time. I didn't have time to prep at all, the ground hit me before I knew it was coming after me. Luckily, I didn't break anything even though there were a couple ribs that felt like they had been broken for about half an hour afterwards. Another case of sleep on 1 side for a month after. Here's the cheese pic taken afterwards. No I don't always have that bad of lines.

Wreck 4: Taking a dog for a walk on a leash attached on the other end to a cyclist may sound like a great idea, but it's not. When it's a sub 30lb dog, you'd think this would not be a problem. First half mile, no problem. Second half mile, big problem. Lucy the beagle decided there was something very important that had to be sniffed for longer than I was ready to give her time for. She stopped dead in her tracks and I do an endo. Thud. Most of me hits grass, but my hip hit the asphalt. Ouch, but that went away pretty quickly since it was a thud at around 10 mph rather than 30mph.

Wreck 5: 2nd wet criterium of the year. Elite National Criterium Championships in Chicago. I'd seen at least 15 wrecks happen before the 1 that eventually got the better of me. 2 guys went down in front of me, the 1st guy down would have been no problem to avoid. 2nd guy, impossible. Luckily, I just slid and slid and... slid. That was without a question the furthest I've ever slid on pavement. Probably a good 30 to 40ft is my guess. Get up and have 150-ish elite level cyclists go whirring by, hoping not to get hit by any of them. Checked out the body and bike and there was no damage. I still can't believe it! My left hand hurt a fair amount, but that was internal and could be fought through for the remainder of the race.

The bike is still in 1 piece and I've yet to break anything on it. Scary part is, I've been using the same handlebar since mid-2004. Maybe I'd better invest in a new bar over the winter.

I thought about adding in other kinds of wrecks, but other than the bike, I've been okay. No wrecking on ski's, driving, or even walking - yet.

So there you have it, a blog about wrecking. There were a couple other ideas on the topic title, but they just didn't fit quite right. Five For Riding and High 5 for 7.

Now, it's time to head north. Over N' Out

Permanently Clean House Vs Occassional Disaster Area

Since moving into Boise and having a guy for a roommate rather than the (ex) girlfriend of almost 8yrs there are a few things that I've learned. 1st on that list is that I am now required to do half of the organization and cleanliness. Luckily, we're both relaxed about the whole cleaning topic. Cleaning on my own accord is this strange new beast that I must overcome on a more frequent basis than I'm used to. I am used to this level of organization all the time.

No that is not my stuff, but it does portray how it used to be, more or less all the time. Key words being USED TO BE. Now, I call the shots and on the rare occassion it still looks like that, but when it does, I feel more inclined to take a picture of my accomplishments. More often than not, you'll see my room looking something like this.

Okay, maybe there's a bit of dramatization purely for the blogs purpose in that picture, but you get the idea. I try, it's true, but there's a balance to everything and being a clean freak just cuts into free time too much. It just takes too much time to be on the super organized level if I still want to have fun. As a cyclist and an outdoorsy enthusiast in general, things need to be cleaned and organized very frequently just to keep order of what's going which direction. Things fall out of order fairly quickly. So the goal now is to become as efficient as possible. Do 90% of the job in 50% of the time, riiiight. Anyways, I've written way too much about cleaning and you have full right to razz me about it the next time you see me.
The other things that were already known but just further confirmed: Boise is better for riding and it's is way better for anything social, getting out in a minutes time is not a problem.
So, I've rambled more than enough today. Until I get another wild hare to blog about more boring things, hope you enjoyed.

A Weekend In The Treasure Valley

Blog Index: Cycling news in the top section, other news and upcoming weekend towards the bottom.

Another race season is very, very close to being over. The last sanctioned races of the year in the Treasure Valley have just come and gone and guess what? The Bob's-bicycles.com team bookended the year with wins! The road race on Saturday started with attacks from the gun, almost entirely from my teammate Justin Mayfield. Once he had broken the fields back and slipped away, I recieved permission from our team captain to bridge the gap. After shedding the two guys that tried to make the bridge with me, Justin and I were gone. It was around 4 miles into a 97 mile race and we were somehow supposed to make 93 miles go by very quickly. This is something I have never even attempted let alone succeed at. Last year, Justin went on this exact same kind of "suicide attack" and almost stuck it. His efforts resulted in my winning the State Champs last year, so this year I wanted to make sure that those efforts were repaid. Once I got on his wheel this year, we went into an immediate 1 minute pull trade off. We synced our clocks and pulled evenly for the remaining 93 miles. Roughly 230 1 minute swaps at the front! That's what you call a two man team time trial. The pace would go up and down depending on how much confidence we had that the gap was insurmountable. The final gap ended up being roughly 11 minutes or 4.5 miles. The first big lap went by very quickly when we were first developing the gap and the speed didn't drop off much for the second big lap. By the second of the smaller laps, our speed had dropped off a bit, but the feeling of accomplishment was starting to sink in for sure. As you can see in the picture, Justin rolled in to become the new Idaho State Road Race Champion. Following in for 3rd was none other than our team captain Tad Hamilton. Yes you can win a date with him, but you're gonna have to get permission from his wife first. Also, in fifth was the cramping up Brandon Archibald. That's one impressive showing for the Bob's crew, no doubt.


The next day proved to be more difficult for the Bob's team to control. There were many racers with fresh legs, ready to cover every little move. Eventually, we got a move up the road with 3 of us and 2 of the Bode crew. From that move, we launched Justin Rose up the road, one of our guys with fresh legs. It was a very good thing that he was able to stay away since all of the moves behind were being covered and the field would not break up. Into the second to last corner, two Bode guys wrecked out and completely changed the dynamics of the race for second. Again, it was a good thing that Rose was gone because that wreck really messed up the outcome from behind. Perpetual strong man Tim Root pulled out the silver from the field sprint. All-in-all, 2 Bob's State Champions in 2 days is a pretty sweet way to end the sanctioned season. Now we just need to finish it off with a Bogus Basin "World Championships" Hillclimb win.

Also, my dad decided to come down for the weekend and stayed out at my sister and brother-in-law's. Very good to have family come down and go do stuff away from cycling on such a super cycling saturated weekend. I think he met half of the Boise cycling community in the two days of handing out bottles and watching us go in squares.

Next weekend is going to be the first time in waaaay too long that I get to go camping up on the North Fork of the Clearwater River and luckily it will be for a 3 day weekend. Before that, I'm meeting up with some ol' friends for a brewsky or 5 friday night. Soooo looking forward to a 3 day weekend. Supposedly the Kokanee are running this time of year and will turn the river red. The Kokanee over at Municipal Park/MK Nature Center have turned red, so I'd guess that to be a good indication of what I'll see up north. Typically 3 days is considered a short time, but since I've blown all of my vacation on bike racing, my perspective on time off has to be temporarily adjusted.

See the world for free. Check this out!

Panoramic views (the picture moves around to see in all directions) of some of the most amazing places on earth:

http://www.panoramas.dk/archive.html

Find "The Full Screen Archive" section and select a year/place to view. Once you've opened one up, go to the upper right corner and select the Panoramas drop down box to go to another view from that year. Hit F11 when one is open to make it even larger.
Most of them will scroll 360 degrees in all directions.
Enjoy

Ride a bike? Thought about starting? Here's a tip or two.

Ok, here's a list of things that can help make a satisfied cyclist. These tips should help anyone from the novice to the experienced racer. I'll keep the more extensive stuff off the list so that it doesn't bore you too much. Gotta keep some secrets right? So here they are, in no particular order:

Comfort: test various parts on your bike - seats: seat types, makes/models, heights, angles, fore-aft, everything - bars: bar types, makes/models, reach, height, angle, all of it - pedals/shoes: test out various models before buying, comfort is hugely important. Take a guess who I'd recommend getting bike stuff from? They really are good at what they do. Also, If you can afford it, a professional fit would help for sure. There's more than one good option around, but there is definitely a clear favorite here in town.

#1 important part of cycling is to enjoy it. Make sure that you aren't forcing any of it. To be good at it, you gotta enjoy being out on the bike first and foremost. See new places, meet new people, and be adventurous with it.

When cornering, especially downhill, keep the outside leg down and put real weight on it. Whatever weight you can put on your inside arm will help too. Please follow the outside leg down rule! If you don't, you will eventually wreck and people behind you may pay the price as well.

Dress appropriately for the weather. No matter how experienced you are at cycling, this will always be a challenge. In the cold weather, it's better to wear too much than too little, but not so much that it cuts off circulation to anything, anywhere. It's easy to plan for the hot stuff, just wear as little as possible and try to choose reflective colors. Spring rides can be the hardest. You have to plan for everything from rain to heat to wind storms.

Get aerodynamic, especially on the flats, to go fast. Less frontal area presented to the oncoming air equals less air pressure slowing you down. Once you've got a svelte body from riding a lot, there is way more to be gained from aerodynamics than losing more weight.

Make your hard/intense days really, really intense, as intense as possible. Make your easy days really easy, both on the time and intensity side of things.

Tires are super important. Choose wisely for what you need them for. A pair for training and a pair for racing is a wise choice.

Be motivated for the races you have planned. Set goals and shoot for those. Aiming for too many races will burn a racer out, been there done that. 1 month out is a very important time frame.

Don't become too focused on riding and racing only. Make sure to do other things in life or you'll over cook it and want to quit. Eventually the rule of deminishing returns can and will come into play. Been there, done that, got the shirt.

This should suffice for now. I may add on if anything really important comes to mind.

refer to the "#1 important" section over and over if neccessary -
Over N' Out-
Whisky, Mike

The Quickie - Crit Nationals in Chi-town

Take off at 8:05 Saturday morning, get into O'hare at 1-ish. Hop the shuttle to Thrifty and find out that a Caravan doesn't hold 4 bikes in boxes and bags. Upgrade to the Grand Caravan and we're on our way. On the drive to the hotel, we determined that the roads in Chicago have no shoulder and look like this. We got the bikes put together and found lunch at a place called the Coyote (mexican). Then it was time to watch the pro-am day-before race that we were skipping since flying and racing same day is just not much fun. Finish the day off with some good Thai food, downing a beer and then try to sleep through extremely loud partiers (not your average loud partiers!) next door at our Comfort Suite. Wake up and give an 8am courtesy call to the neighbors, but we're pretty sure they got evicted by the cops. Looked out the window and saw the predicted 1 to 2 inches of rain making its start on the day. Got to the course in Downers Grove, a Chicago suburb, pull out the gear and ready it for take off. At least one warm up lap to figure out the course was a dream that was not coming true, line up took place as soon as the gates opened. The Bob's team got the short end of the stick in the line up order and we were all very near the back of 170 racers. Not good for any criterium, but it makes things even more difficult when it's wet! We fought the entire race to get near the front. The whole time, it was a challenge to see out fogged up and grit covered glasses. By half way in, I finally made it to the front only to be wrecked out one lap later as somebody slid out just in front of me. I had just earned the sweet spot of 5 riders back and immediately hit the deck... NO!!! At least the bike and body were still functional and I got back in. Back to working my way to the front again, which never truely happened. Miss a few more wrecks, one by the tiniest of margins. There must have been 20 pile-ups or single rider slide outs in that race! I wasn't the only bob's-bicycles.com guy to get mixed up in a wreck. Brandon went down twice. Of our three combined wrecks, none were caused by us. Our Michelin tires with 90lbs of pressure kept us fully confident in our cornering skills. We all concurred that the Abercrombie & Fitch team were causing most of the wrecks. Lets get that team on some different tires! Eventually the finish came around and I rolled in for 24th. Rob Campbell finished in 15th, not too shabby Rob! We got the bikes boxed and put back in the Grand Caravan, then managed to get somewhat lost finding our return location due to a north/south sign conflict. There's a reason it's called Thrifty. The flight was nearly 2hrs late. Got back into town at 1am and go back to the 8 to 4:30 grind the next morning, thus the title - The Quickie.

Results: - 24th - not too bad for 170 starters

Pictures: - none include me, but do show the conditions

speed limit 10mph

So this blog is going to deviate from the standard "how it goes" blog entry.

There are a bunch of ways to cross the country and see things in new and enlightening ways. None of which I have ever done, but there is now a newly confirmed possible method of doing so. The retired prefer a motorhome. The young have a tendency to prefer a motorcycle. The hardcore go via bicycles. The extremely hardcore hike it. There is another branch of extremely hardcore that race it on bicycles in an event called the RAAM (race across america). No, I'm not going to do the RAAM next year if that's where your mind was wondering. Sleep deprivation and going broke for no real reason isn't what I have in mind...yet. For the time being, I'm just kind of curious about how the journey Josh Caldwell and Hunter Weeks took from Seattle to Boston went. They decided to give up the regular 9 to 5, hop on segways, roll along at 10mph for a few thousand miles and document the whole thing. Might as well take a chance at making some $ along the way if you're gonna give up your steady source right? I like the idea, now I just gotta watch the flick.
Anyone want to invest in 15 pairs of roller shoes (14 spares) and hit the road? Just don't ask for rollerskates or blades, we gotta go slower and on less reliable transportation to make this show stand out amongst the competitive documentaries coming out. Maybe we could incorporate a shopping cart, worked for Johnny Knoxville. Keywest sounds like a good destination to me, but I guess we could have a game of rocks, paper, sissors on where we go if you think somewhere else is more desirable. Since I don't have a digi-cam, that's going to be a prereq for being invited! Maybe we can put on beer can caps and fill em' with electrolyte energy drinks for the extra unique feature. Another option is to make the whole trip on Subway food only and call the documentary Superslim Me. I wouldn't mind being Jared's replacement. Or forget Subway and go the route of eating only at Dick's restaurants, I'll let your creative mind come up with the title for that one. Borat needed a quest of Pamela Anderson, so I guess something like that couldn't hurt. Any chance that a roller beauty queen that likes Subway food lives in Key West?
Anyways, I've bored myself with writing about docu/mocumentaries and will move on to the very brief "how it goes" section.
Camping was a good time, but waaay too brief. I finally got to do some mountain bike riding. 4.5hrs on a rough dirt road. I'm not sure that counts 100% since it was all dirt road, but 4.5hrs has got to count for something, right? The work week has been too busy and I want (borderline need) time off to chill. This weekend is a trip to Chicago for a criterium. Figure 8's over a 1 mile course. It is predicted to be in the rain and I'm wondering if I'm going to melt. Rain is this foreign thing that I've kind of forgotten exists.
The race form is definitely coming around again as I've felt substantially better this week in the local hill climb and TT than weeks before. Hopefully the national criterium championships will go the way we hope. We're sending a solid crew of Campbell, Rose (sometimes referred to by jokers like myself as Princess Rose - yes, he's going to kill me for this reference), Buster and myself (Mike Charlie Whisky - phonetics for MCW).
Anyways, I'll do what I can to keep you informed-
Later-
Mike Charlie Whisky

P.S.
http://www.10mph.com/ if you want to order the DVD or just read up on it.

Keeping the ball rolling

This summer is getting better each week that goes by. The move to Boise (from Nampa) has been a good thing for the most part. The location is great, the roommate thing seems to be working out pretty well, and I've been keeping busier than I expected with all sorts of random things. Last weekend's fun included a play at the Starlight Mountain Theatre in Crouch, ID. Every weekend from now until mid-September is booked with anything from camping with family to racing in Chicago (Criterium Nationals). After the Bogus Basin Hill Climb, aka the Bogus Basin World Championship Hill Climb (register here), the season is over and I get to do more non-cycling things. Recently I won a bid on eBay for a Garmin Legend GPS so that I can make sure that new places I want to go to get found. Three things that I have been thinking about doing soon are hiking to the Deadwood Hot Springs, mountain biking the Julie Creek trail, and ziplining the Tamarack Resort. As for other news, this weekend is both Jami and my dad's birthdays and I don't get to spend it with either of them since Jami is visiting family/friends and my dad broke his foot in a dirtbike wreck and is in a cast that keeps him from doing anything outdoors. DOH! Maybe the following weekend will make up for it with a camping trip with everyone (pops gets a new walking cast on the 6th).

As everyone knows, the heat has been really full on lately and hitting the water is the only way to survive. So, I've gone swimming, am going tubing down the Boise River this weekend and wouldn't mind hitting up Roaring Springs sometime (mostly just a teeny-bopper place, but oh well, it's still fun). The other side of this heat is that I've had to get somewhat adapted to riding in the heat. That's not an easy thing to do! Freezing a half filled bottle and then topping it off with water before heading out works well, but drinking super cold water messes up the body when working out, so I just dump it on my head and back, which works really well for keeping cooler. For drinking, I just bring along tap temp water.

On a totally different topic, I never gave an overview of the Boise Twilight Criterium, so here it is. The race was crazy! That's pretty much the only way to describe this years rendition! The Bobs-bicycles.com team had a tent set up in corner one and we knew we'd be hearing our names there most laps :) For the most part all I ended up hearing was Remi's name, the local criterium specialist who ended up getting 5th. With 13 laps to go, jockying for position became much harder as the pace picked up and the insanity going into each corner was taken to another degree. With 6 laps to go, the Toyota-United team took over and I mean took full control of the race like nobodies business! They were swinging really wide, cutting tight and swinging wide into and out of each corner and doing 36+mph the whole time! and another ! So for the rest of us, it was a fight for a good wheel somewhere immediatly behind that train. That fight results in racers getting cut off by other racers over and over in very dangerous situations. Many at the front have no regard for the safety of the riders around them, only the desire to stay up themselves. To stay near the front, it's a fight to cut others off while not hitting the deck yourself. With two laps to go, the crowd around the start/finish line were going absolutely nuts and the noise was so amazing. With one lap to go, the noise was literally shaking me. Even with the focus of the zen master, I could not help but realize that the voices of over 20,000 people within 40 feet of us yelling to go faster was rattling the bike and my body while going 39mph. It was a very strange feeling with a mix of nerves being shaken from insanity through the corners, maxing out the physical limits of my body to go faster and at the same time being cheered on to the point that it was shaking me. In the end, I road in for 21st out of 103 top notch racers from around the country and our entire team showed themselves off of the front of the field at some point in the race, which is pretty impressive in my opinion. My mom, sister, brother-in-law and all sorts of friends from the Treasure Valley were all treated to the best show that a bunch of fast cyclists can possibly put on. Someone likened the pack going by to a couple semi-trailers driving by at 60mph as the wind to the sides of the pack is truly awesome! If you happen to be in town on the third weekend of July next year, make sure to visit downtown for some fun and don't forget to bring some beer to loosen up your vocal chords.

And if you want, leave a comment about how you've spent the summer relaxing around the BBQ or falling asleep at the helm of your raft in the backyard pool. (and I changed it so anyone can comment)
Until next time, it's been fun.

Up, Down and All Around

Sometimes life throws you a curveball, you just hope that it’s not coming from Nolan Ryan or Randy Johnson, even after they retire! This time it wasn’t really a hit batter, it was more of a strike out, but Jami has made up her mind that things are over. That’s a bummer for me, no doubt. I’ll be moving in with teammate Brandon Archibald soon.
Anyways, I went to Nationals and got a respectable but not exactly what I had hoped for 9th place in the time trial, 30 seconds back of the winner. I went as hard as I could, I do not question that. The top 3 were separated by .24 of a second! They calculated out the difference between first and second was less than 5 feet at 30+mph over nearly 15 miles, amazing! Okay, so we did 78,144 feet of racing and the difference between first and second was 5! Second place went 99.9936% as fast as first place and lowly third was all of 10 feet behind second or 99.98% as fast as first place. The timing was very accurate as well since we rolled over a sensor at both the start and finish lines. Had I done one of the better time trials of my life, the win would have been very possible. I’m pretty sure that the problem is that I’ve lost a bit of weight lately and that won’t help flat course time trialing. Oh well, that’s life. That night, we had to go pick up one of our teammates that was flying in for the road race. He was slated to show up at 11:30pm and the drive is a little over an hour from Seven Springs to Pittsburgh on open roads. We found out that the road we needed was completely closed for the weekend and the detour was extremely slow. Even a local bus driver had a tough time coming up with a re-route for us. End result: we get back to the condo at 3am and none of the partying to show for it. Luckily we had a couple days between races and nothing major to do but kill time (sleep). The road race went better and worse at the same time. The form was clearly there and a great place was definitely possible, but an ill timed flat on the second of three laps effectively took me out of the race. Oh well, that’s life… did I say that before somewhere? The racing went alright all things considered and the trip was fun too. The condo we were staying in was at the top of a ski hill that had a two lane alpine slide! How cool is that?! And what do bike racers do when in any competitive situation? RACE! It was on like Donkey Kong. I won round 1, but was taking a picture at the start of round 2 and lost out on the quick start and even messed up the picture trying to make up ground. After alpine slide racing, we found out that Somerset County, PA is a dry county other than at the Seven Springs resort which bought up all of the liquor licenses, so if by any chance you ever decide that visiting Seven Springs is in your future, BYOB or drink cheap beer for good beer prices.

In the between time from the time trial to the road race, we did some riding on the local roads and we went down a decent that can only be described as AWESOME! I hit my new max speed on a bike down it, 64.9mph!
After the road race, the condos went from hustling/bustling to cleared out and empty. It was all over, we packed up our bikes and headed back to Pittsburgh for the night before flying out the next morning. We had a night to spend doing whatever in Pittsburgh, so we decided that a quick bite and hitting the bar scene would be the way to go. To do that, it required driving around aimlessly for a couple hours. Not really lost I guess since we didn’t really know what exactly it was we were looking for. At some point, our stomachs desire for food took over the desire for just the right place and we found some random place instead. As for the bar, it was random too and did the job. We even got to taste Pittsburgh’s famous Iron City beer. The next morning, we found out that the original jet that was planned was not available and the replacement wasn't as big. The people first in line that actually got seats (us) were holding tickets that just became worth more than their weight in gold. We traded out the flight for a different flight plan which resulted in free tickets to anywhere in the U.S. Now we get to take two more riders to Chicago for Criterium Nationals. By the way, I’m not going to stop racing all together, just reduce the amount of vacation days I use to travel to big pro stage races that just kick me around anyways. I'll use those days to enjoy other things in life. The other major stipulation is that I’m not going to be half as strict about life and training. I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes me a better racer and a better person in general. Anyways, I’m back in the Treasure Valley, or is that Tragic Valley now and the biggest race in Idaho is about to take place in downtown Boise on Saturday night. 13,000 fans and some of the best racers in the U.S. will be there to make it hurt. Pro men start at 8:30pm on Main St and go in squares for 90 minutes at break neck speeds. Soooooooooooooo much fun. Come on down and watch us mix it up!
See ya out there-
MW

Out With A Bang

A pinnacle in my life is about to take place and I know that it’s going to be a whirlwind of crazy emotions. Not only am I going to quit cycling all together, but I’m ending it all after the biggest race I’ve ever done in my entire life. The Elite National Time Trial (individual effort over a specific distance, fastest time wins) is on July 13th in Seven Springs, Pennsylvania. It’s the kind of thing that kids dream of when they are out back in their yard pretending that they are the great Bambino (Babe Ruth) pointing to the outfield calling his home run shot or on the court singing the “like Mike” tune in their head as they fire away a three pointer. Instead of being 10 and in the back yard, I’m 27 and have based everything in and around my life on being as fast as humanly possible on a bicycle. The competition is as good as it can possibly be in the U.S. and I’m in as good of form as I have ever been or likely ever will be. All systems check. All cylinders are ready to be fired in a symphony of intensity for 14.88 miles over rolling terrain on Highway 219. It will likely take just over half of an hour to end everything that I have focused on since I was 14. 30 minutes to end 13 years of desire, sweat, focus, dedication, financial loss and an enormous amount of hard work that has cost me many other desired things in my life. Words can’t really describe how much I want to win this race. The odds are somewhat stacked against me as I have been beaten by other guys in the currently registered field, but on the other hand, I have beaten every single one of them on some occasion in my life. Now I just have to beat every single one of them on July 13th. It’s a huge thing to ask for and I’m not in any way expecting to win, but I am dreaming about it. Everything about the course fits me. The elevation is identical to what I live at. The temperature is similar to the Treasure Valley’s. The rolling hills are what I time trial on every week and grew up training on in and around the small town of Kendrick, ID. The only off thing is that there could be humidity that I’m not used to; please don’t throw me off humidity! Luckily Seven Spring is somewhat inland of the coast and won’t be as full on humid as, lets say, Philadelphia.
All of the cards will be laid down and the dealer will finalize the results. Then I go home and go into a new phase in my life. Focusing on being an outgoing, outdoorsy, fun loving guy is what I am going to transfer my energy to. Life will be dramatically changed and the intensity focused on all sorts of other things. #1 will hopefully be my girlfriend of the last 8yrs if I can somehow earn her focus back on me. If you were wondering why I’m changing everything about how I go about life, here’s the answer. A cyclist at the top level is so narrowly focused on cycling that life steadily becomes that same way. I knew there was a problem developing and I wasn’t doing anything to fix it since I was so motivated for the next big thing. In my career as a cyclist, I’ve won more races than most and that motivates a guy to keep doing it. At some point though, the competition will be good enough to beat ya. In Idaho, I have to travel to find that competition. Traveling just to race takes a lot of time out of a person’s life and strains relationships with everyone who doesn’t partake in the same passion. After traveling extensively for the last three years, I know my physical limits. The opportunities to travel more just keep opening up. If you read my last blog about Indonesia, you might understand why I have kept it rolling. As of last Thursday night, the single most important person that has ever entered my life told me that she is no longer motivated in keeping me around for another day. This not only put me over the limit of my waning desire to keep the wheels rolling, it shattered the core of who I am and what I want for the future. Maybe it’s comparable to when a crack addict finally realizes that their addiction is ruining their life. That is what I’m dealing with as I write this letter.
The physical attributes that I have worked so hard for on the bike are still there, but the will that built up that strength seems to have deflated. I keep trying to force motivation back into the engine so that Nationals doesn’t fall off track, but it’s like trying to pump up a tire that has been punctured. Thankfully, all of the important training to gain speed for Nationals has already been completed and I’m pretty sure that I can put a patch on my flat tire that will hold just long enough to do 30 minutes of full throttle, all or nothing racing. When that race is done, that patch will detonate and the flood waters of the Johnstown Dam will come rushing out.

If any of you know my girlfriend Jami Johnson personally, would you please put in a good word for me because my words just can’t be enough right now.

Somewhere around 2pm on July 13th, every last little bit of who I currently am and what I have focused on for my entire adult life will be flowing out of me onto the beautiful rolling roads of Pennsylvania.

Thanks for reading.

Save Ferris Bueller

Okay, we’ve all seen Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, so now you’re wondering why we need to save him. If you’ve got a good memory, you’ll remember some random guy walking the halls of Ferris’s high school with a Coke can saying "save Ferris Bueller" trying to raise money to pay for Ferris’s med bills. Ferris’s sister knocks the can out of the guys hand since she knows he isn't sick. Instead he was out on the town (Chicago) having fun.
So what does this scene have to do with Matt Weyen, it’s his blog right? Well we all gotta band together and Save Matt Weyen! Get out your Coke cans and collect your spare change, ‘cause Matt Weyen needs to go to Indonesia. The Bobs-Bicycles.com team has been invited to race the Tour of Indonesia, all expenses paid… But, there’s always a But. Here’s the catch, I’d have to miss two weeks of work and it would be unpaid since I’ve used all of my 16 days of vacation for racing already. On top of that, I would have to get an expedited passport and a UCI racing license ($350 total there). Anyone have a Coke can the size of the one on the local Red Bull-mobile? And it’s gotta be full of dollar coins, ‘cause that’s what it’s gonna take!
Wait! Don’t stop reading now; I’ve got more links to the Bueller movie! If Indonesia falls through and nobody reading this happens to live on a pocket full of gold (and truely thinks that the Weyen kid needs to go to Indonesia), the other option is to go to Elite Criterium Nationals … in Chicago. We won’t be cruising town in a Ferrari 250 GT California or lip-syncing Twist and Shout in the Van Steuben Day Parade, but we will be racing our Giant TCR 1’s in front of a (hopefully) large crowd in downtown Chicago. Okay, I’m fresh out of links to the movie unless you want me to get even cheesier.

On other news, Tara’s (my younger sister) wedding last weekend in Pullman, WA went well. Absolutely perfect weather and free beer = good (beer=good has been predetermined in the last blog). Now I’ve got another brother (in-law), Josh Gaines, and he’s cool (his family proved to be more fun than ours at the wedding reception too). The only drawback to the weekend was that the team wasn’t too happy that I missed a great race (aka battle) in Baker City. Oh well, the Elite National Time Trial is only two weeks off and more specific training is probably a better thing anyways. This weekend is a 3 stage race in Pocatello, should be fun. The following weekend will be camping near Elk City with my dad’s side of the family and then it’s off to Seven Springs, Pennsylvania for nationals!

So, here’s to another successfully completed blog – isn’t that just a weird sounding word? Like you could just say blooooooooooog, pronounced with a really long soft O and a bored looking face, almost like you’re gonna fall asleep. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
Bueller... Bueller... Bueller...
Um, he's sick. My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night. I guess it's pretty serious.

My Ever Present Past; thanks for the title Sir Paul McCartney

This last weekend, the past came rushing back to me and it was great.
So the story goes: hop in the car after work on Friday afternoon and do my best to blaze my way north. I had just enough time to pop out a couple new CD’s the day before since I don’t have an input for the Ipod, but if ya do the math, 80 minutes per CD * 2 does not equal 5hrs of driving. Thus, I got a bit of a broken record by the time I was dragging the final stretches into Kendrick. Yeah, Tom Petty just kept Free Fallin’ all afternoon.

Typically, the day before a race, some kind of an opener (a ride that gets the body ready to go for racing) is optimal, but I didn’t have time for that, so while on the road I pulled out the Compex (electrical muscle stimulation thingy) that I’m still borrowing from one of the fast newbies on the crew while he’s in Ireland (thanks Rose) and electrocuted my legs while zoning on the highway with cruise control on. It wasn’t a ride on the road, but it was the next best thing that I had available.
So I finally pull into town and get the usual rush of wishing I didn’t live in sage brush land. Kendrick rocks for training hard on a bike; everything around goes up, up and then up some more on roads with low traffic and friendly drivers. It’s always pretty sweet for all sorts of other outdoorsy stuff too.
Anyways, get to the race on Saturday morning and realize that the wind is going the way I’m always hoping for (tailwind) but never seem to get! At the line, the field appears to be missing a few strong riders that I’m used to helping force the pace to the bottom of the grade (namely Ben Rhodes). So I drill it myself and pay the price a bit as local strong mountain biker Jeremy Pinto is now having no problem staying with me on the grade. I was actually fairly glad to have him there as the wind going up the grade wasn’t much fun since we were now going against it instead of with it. With around half a mile to go, he jumps me and tries to get away, but I wasn’t coming off of any wheel too easily and am on it immediately. Coming into the last 500 meters (yards-ish), he jumps again and I followed. I waited for him to completely run out of gas and returned the favorJ, it worked perfectly and I pulled off the win. It was like old times only reverse of how I would lose it to Rusty Beall back in the day.
Then I headed back to Kendrick to meet up with Jami and the pooch Lucy, who I hadn’t seen in 9 days. That night, we were to meet up with some friends from high school, so I had just enough time to go hit up a couple grades on the bike and get ready to go. Out the door and ready to eat, drink and be merry for the rest of the night. Jami and I meet up with Kelly and Anna at the ol’ hang out (MJ Barley Hoppers). I hadn’t talked with Kelly since graduation! After a 9 year hiatus, you’d guess it might be slow going for a bit, but 5 minutes in and you’d think we did this on a weekly basis. Of course, the immediate addition of social lubrication (pronounced al-co-hol) helped some, good stuff J Add in a great meal (smoke salmon fettuccini) to good company and microbrews = good times. The goal was to get in a good ride and do a fathers day breakfast the next day so we didn’t stay out too late (11:30), but it was fun minus the hangover. The next morning, Jami and I took my dad and grandma out for breakfast at the small town café that I’ve ate at exactly 1 million times (my eyes just turned brown). Sundays on a two day trip up north are always a bit of a disappointment since I have to leave long before I want to. I hold out until the last possible minute of getting home at a somewhat decent time and brace myself for another rendition of the two CD’s, only this time I get to share it with our 1yr old beagle, Lucy. Since Jami’s going to be working for her step-dad in Nez Perce for a few more days and they don’t have a fenced yard, she thought it would be better for the pooch to go with me. I’m pretty sure that Lucy’s taste for music doesn’t discriminate between the aforementioned Tom Petty, a bit of Paul Simon, Amy Winehouse and even some Metallica.
So, here’s the weekends scorecard in the order that they took place:
Cool:
1 – listening to a fresh mix of tunes
2 – rockin’ out at the same race I’ve been doing forever
3 – getting to hang out with and catch up with ol’ friends
4 – good food and beer while doing number 3
5 – fathers day with some of the fam

Not:
1 – once the fresh mix gets reran too many times
2 – 10hrs of driving for 2 days of fun
3 – the rush to get back into the swing of things for the next week

Okay, 5 to 3 = good weekend. Still would be if it were 3 to 3.
Over N’ Out until the next edition.

You are what you eat, so start pumping the high octane gasoline

Okay, this might sound weird to those who don’t care about what kind of foods they put in their mouths, but cyclists become something like pseudo-nutritionists if they want to get ahead. Food to a cyclist is like gas is to a car and the higher octane stuff ya put in, the faster it goes. Since I’ve been a cyclist for 13yrs now, I’ve read my fair share about all sorts of foods. So, I got the crazy idea that maybe (key word there) it would be an interesting thing to share my grocery list. Since I prefer fresh foods, I gotta hit up the grocery stores at least once a week, so the following list is for something like 1 weeks worth of food. Be forewarned, this may seem like a disgusting volume of food to the non-cyclist!
Anything with an O next to it means that it’s organic.
1st, I hit up Fred Meyer:
Kettle Tortilla chips – O
2 rolls Smoked Salmon and avacado Sushi (yeah, I ate that right away)
32 oz Stonyfield yogurt – O
3 cans of Fred Meyers Oysters (loaded with Iron – only brand that tastes good)
2 cans Healthy Valley Turkey Chilli
bag of dried ginger - O
Barbara’s blueberry fig bars - O
32oz Aloe Vera juice (first time trying this stuff) - O
2 cans of Muir Glen split pea soup – O
1 can of Wolf Gang Puck tortilla soup – O
2lb Continental Salad, spring mix - O

2nd, I head on over to Winco for more
9 cans of Brunswick herring sardines
Idaho Harvest golden flax and whole grain bread - O
3 bags of frozen Dole blueberries
total of 1lb of Tony’s smoked salmon
6 pack of Guiness Draught (first time I’ve bought beer at the grocery store this yr)
2 large avocados
1lb of flax seed meal
3 Kiwi’s
1.5lbs of Kale
1lb of Spinach – O
3 red pears (usually get Dan’jou pears)
2 bottles of Briana salad dressing (1 honey Dijon, 1 poppy seed)
32oz bottle of Bolthouse Veggie
1 gallon of milk (sometimes I go with organic, but that stuff is spendy!)

Things that I usually get, but didn’t have to this last week:
1lb of freshly ground almond butter
1lb of locally harvested clover honey
box of Sweet Home Farm honey nut granola
box of kelloggs all-bran original
box of uncle sam’s original
large bag of bin fruit granola cereal mix
Since my dad got his elk last year and I helped pack it out, I got 34lbs of that and I’d guess that there is about 10 to 15lbs of that still around. Also, the neighbors gave us some deer meat, so we occasionally dig into that as well.
I also take two Omega-3 pills per day – the ones from GNC with GLA and all sorts of other cool Omega’s in em’.
In general, I try to keep a high volume of fruits, vegetables and foods that are less processed and prefer them to be organic. I try to eat a high fiber diet with less saturated fats and more poly and monounsaturated fats (very picky on whether or not the poly-unsaturated fats are processed as they oxidize very badly and are big time known cancer causers).

lapping the field is fun, but it's no cake walk

The 7th Day criterium yesterday was ran in the wettest conditions I’ve ever raced in in the Treasure Valley! Since this race was put on by our team, we all got to volunteer (pronounced voluntold) for all of the events but our own – the pro/1/2’s. Over the day, it poured down 8 tenths of an inch! Only the hardcore locals showed up, but they got the experience of racing on a great criterium course. By the time our race came around, I was only half-heartedly getting ready and less than 100% motivated when I first put my leg over the bike. Once I got rolling though, it was game on as usual, no matter the weather. It’s amazing what the competitive juices can do for ya! There were jumps from the gun and the pace was up and down until my teammate Chris Stuart made a real move, going up the road by 10-ish seconds. A few attempts were made to pull him back in by the other teams, but when local criterium specialist Tim Root hit the front, it was lights out for that move. Pulling Stuart back put enough strain on the field that it made a perfect opportunity for me to counter. I stayed away on my own for the next 30 or so minutes when I heard that Stuart was coming across solo. I was super glad to hear that as I was getting tired setting pace on my own the whole way! I sat up and waited for him to get on my wheel and we were gone. With two laps to go, we had the opportunity to fully lap the field, but sat up a little and let them play out their sprint for third. At the line, I gave the “W” to Chris. It was like déjà vu from Friday night other than it was raining and the crowd was way smaller. Either way, it was pretty kick@$$ to have two Bob’s guys lap the field two times in one weekend!

rockin' the Eagle Criterium

Somewhere around 15 to 20 minutes into Friday night's Eagle Criterium, I flew the coupe trying to get up the road after the field had been chasing a break that had my teammate Brandon Archibald in it (team bios: http://www.teambobs-bicycles.com/modules.php?name=Riders-men). After passing the break and having gained something like 10 seconds on the break and 15 or so on the field, I heard over the radio that Brandon (aka Buster) had split the break and was coming up solo. I sat up until Buster was on my wheel. I gave him a couple laps to draft me and then we started working evenly, splitting the workload lap for a lap. We were getting time splits on corner two every time around and occassionally on the race radio. The gap was getting larger and larger until all of a sudden we were told that it had shrank a bit and then we kept getting reports that the gap was getting smaller and smaller each lap, which made us a bit nervous since we only had around 12 minutes left in the race. Then we rounded corner 2 with about 8 minutes to go and we could see the field going into corner 3! All of a sudden, we realized that the gaps we were getting had been flipped from how far up we were to how far away from lapping the field we were. With 3 laps left in the race, we caught the field. This thoroughly messed up the officials keeping track of who would finish 1-2 and then 3rd and so on. From the moment that we could see the back side of the field, I knew that we were going to take 1-2 and that Brandon had most assuredly earned just such a win. It was crazy awesome for our team to go 1-2 in front of a large downtown Eagle crowd. So much fun.Jami's gone for 2 weeks (1 week in Montana and 1 in Nez Perce, ID) now, so you can count on some more frequent blogging, hopefully I can keep em' interesting :)

tying up loose ends at the Hood

As a team, racing for highest possible general classification at Mt. Hood is the biggest goal. We all focus on making sure that the highest placed racer gets every advantage from all of us whenever possible. Going into the last road race, my teammate Mark Santurbane was the highest placed on GC. Both Mark and I were similarly placed in 16 and 24th, but I had wrecked and was much less likely to make a go of the overall. When Mark flatted less than a quarter mile into an 89 mile super hard stage and the field was stretched out (meaning everyone was going as hard as they can go), Justin Mayfield and myself dropped off the back in an attempt to make sure that Mark got back on. By the time Mark got going again, it was already determined that I should try to get back on the field. I was in no man's land, no follow vehicles to draft on, no other riders to draft off of and doing 32mph up a 3% grade just to maintain my place in respect to the field. When Mark finally did come through from being towed back by our team vehicle, I was in no shape to help him through the caravan (string vehicles following the race). He did catch on, but then the field turned left and went up a sharper hill and Justin and I were together, blown out the back of a major race from the very beginning. This is the last place in the whole world you want to be (other than in a wreck) if you are a competitive cyclist! So Justin and I finally decided that it would be better to just keep on keepin' on and we motored in, catching a few sorry sorts out on the long road to the Meadows Ski Hill on Mount Hood. By the time we finished, we were both in a zombie like state from the 4 and a half hours of full-on effort. The next day, we finished it off with a 1hr criterium in downtown Hood River, in front of the Full Sail brewery. I was lucky enough to get stopped before plowing into a major pile up on the last corner before the start/finish line about half way into the criterium and they even gave me a free lap like all of the wrecked racers. A second wreck would have put me into a serious world of hurt. Anyways, Mark finished 13th overall, Justin and I were much further down in the 50 to 60's range, mainly because of the stage that we rode in alone. Only 82 of the 146 original starters actually finished!
And now I'm stuck sleeping on my right side for the next 3 weeks... joy. Maybe I can make some $ at this coming Friday nights' Eagle Criterium and make things right again! Yeah, it's a never ending desire to kick @$$.
Time to rest and recover... until next time, it's been fun-
Later

Life is a highway... and coffe shop connections help

Here I am in a Hood River coffee shop, figuring out who kicked who's butts today in the hardest time trial I've ever done! It hurt more than usual this time, not only because it went over some serious climbs and directly into the Gorge wind the whole way, but because yesterday I took a fall that makes any movement fairly difficult. Waking this moring, I got the experience of what it's like to be less than perfectly mobile. My hip and all up along my left side is shredded with road rash, the helmet was demolished, both my shorts and jersey were destroyed and I have an internal bruse in my back that makes breathing deep difficult. All of this because of a post race mistake on both my and my teammates behalf. We were riding back to the car post race and were riding close enough to talk over the oncoming wind when a bee got the better of my teammate which resulted in our bars getting intertwined and me hitting the deck at 30-ish mph. It is by far the hardest I've ever hit the ground and a very rude awakening as to what riding a bike can do in a moment.
All-in-all, I'm happy with how things ended up today as the power on the bike was left in tact for the most part. I caught 6 riders and held off the guy that started behind me, a very strong time trialist (Ryan Trebon) by around the same gap we started with. Oddly enough, the bike is about the most comfortable position I've been in since the wreck. Our team is down to 3 from the starting number of 8, but we aren't the only team to take a substancial beating. What we've done in this race so far has been impressive and I'm very proud to be part of such an organization of tough guys.
Anyways, if you've read this far, way to go... and I'm gonna go down some more calories and try to build back up an aching body before tomorrows amazing tough stage. BTW, results of stage 3 are up here:
http://www.cyclingnews.com/road.php?id=road/2007/may07/mthood07/mthood073
more can be found by selecting the "previous stage" link
Anyways, over and out for today.