A little look back.

I posted this a few years back on Rob Fusco's blog. Just been a little nostalgic lately so here it is:

 Rob posted via twitter: tell your story. I disregarded it at first, thinking what do I have to say to the world that I haven’t said or that I actually want people outside my close circle of friends to read. Nothing had came to mind until today after riding about 60 miles when I passed the cemetery where two of my friends are buried and it came to me. I would tell the story about the loss of a friend and the making of a new one and how that process had changed my life and maybe the lives of a few others.
Billy was diagnosed with cancer on Oct 4, 2006 when a tumor in his large intestine ruptured and he was admitted to a local hospital in excruciating abdominal pain. Billy was 27 years old at the time. How the fuck does someone 27 years old get cancer?
At the time, I was a few years removed from racing downhill mountain bikes and was really into rock climbing. I had always loved stories of mountaineering. One day while visiting Billy in the hospital I asked if he needed any books or magazines. He said he wanted to read about the mountains. I brought him a few books, one of which was Mark Twight’s book “Kiss or Kill”. Billy tore through it. He loved the intensity, the rawness and uncompromising spirit. He was so excited he kept taking about some local climbs he wanted to do together. About this time, I discovered the Gym Jones web site, and with no direction, I tried some of the workouts with no rhyme or reasons. I just jumped in. I would destroy myself. I had no idea what I was doing but I found something I liked a lot! I slowly started to figure some shit out and started climbing a little better.
If any of you know someone who has died  or battled cancer knows there is an ebb and flow, the patient has brief moments of feeling better, just enough to give him or her a little hope. This hope is contagious when see your friend feeling better and you start to think he can beat this. We would make plans and the cancer would just slap him back down.
Summer 2008, I told Billy about a race in Utah I was going to do (my second road race ever) and there was a pretty good chance Mark Twight would be there. Billy was so excited, he said “you have to beat him, in fact when you pass him you should pull out your cock and wave it at him”. We laughed, but I insisted their was no way in hell I could beat him and I was pretty sure he raced in a different group than me, but I would try to meet him.
June 17, 2008, in front of Porcupine bar and grill we lined up, and on that day they started the Cat 4 and 5 racers together. As I was looking around, there he was, MFT. I smiled and said “Hi Mark.”  He said “Hi” back but looked slightly confused, like “Who the fuck is this guy? Do I Know Him? WTF?”   The starters gun went off and the race was on. The nice thing about the Porcupine Hill climb race is there are no tactics. It’s a thirteen mile race all up hill and it takes the pros about 1 hour. We start off hard and I have no idea about the course except that it goes up hill, so I am just riding as hard as I can. At one point, I get spit off the back of the group I was riding with, and I hear a voice say “hop on my wheel and lets catch that group” I looked over and who was it but Mark Twight! In my head my brain was yelling at me “stay on that wheel, Mark Fucking Twight is helping you, Stay on that fucking WHEEL!”.  We caught the group pretty quickly and right when we caught back on, a guy attacked and I went with him. I looked back and yelled at Mark to come with us but he didn’t make the move. With just a couple of miles to go, I started to cramp up, but I just kept telling myself “this isn’t shit to the pain Billy is feeling right now.”  I held on to finish 16th in my second ever road race.
After the race, I thanked Mark for his help and told him I liked the web site. He invited me to attend a seminar in Oct, and he also told me I should race the Everest Challenge, but that is another story for another time.
I was super psyched when I called Billy.  Not only did I meet Twight, but he was cool as fuck!  Billy was so happy that I was invited to go to GYM JONES and I beat our hero in a bike race. I had to apologize to Billy because there was no way in hell I was going to be able to wave my cock at Mark. I was way to hypoxic to do anything but hang on to the handlebars. Billy laughed his ass off! He was so excited for me.
Billy Pine Died two months later on August 19, 2008. He is survived by his wife Janis and their  daughter Sydney.
I’ve raced Porcupine Hill Climb the last two years and thoughts of my friend come flooding back, not of him dying but of his contagious laughter and smile. I wonder if it wasn’t for Billy would I be on the path that I am on now. I am now lucky enough to call Mark Twight a friend.  We end up racing against each other a few times a year and he beats me more often than not.  I have upgraded to CAT 3 and I’ve been to GYM JONES multiple times and have earned the “intermediate” certification. I now help  other people train and try to help them achieve their goals. Without the inspiration a dear friend gave me, I don’t think I would have done any of these things, and when I am suffering in a race and want to quit, I think of the that inspiration and I hope I can do the same for someone else one day.
My original copy of “Kiss or Kill” is in a box of Billy’s work stuff.  I hope one day Sydney will find it and maybe it will inspire her as much as it did me and Billy. 

Thanx Rob for a forum to post this.

Les 2 Alpes

Season review

This was my first year racing Master's A/ 35+ Cat3. It was educational to say the least. Learned a lot like racing in February sucks! I had no form and I got murdered! But I found out I could still hold my own in climbing courses and finished mid pack in rolling/flat parcours. I still suck at TT and crits and I vow to continue to work on them both.
So here are the facts:

Callville Bay Classic: Stage 1(RR)- 44th,
Stage 2(TT)- 39
Stage 3(RR)-28th
Stage 4(crit) -pulled
Haystack Mountain TTT- 3rd
Mad Cow Classic RR- 4th
Front Range Classic RR-27th
Deer Trail RR- 23rd
Iron Horse Classic 7th overall
RR- 6th
Crit-20th
TT-13th
Rock the River RR- 17th
Dead Dog Classic GC-12th,
RR-9th
Crit-19th
TT-16th
Horgan Hill Climb 7th
Porcupine Hill Climb 3rd
Capitol Reef Stage Race 7th on GC
TT-9th
Circuit Race-7th
RR- 5th
Mount Evans Hill Climb 2nd
Salida RR 14th
Lookout Mountain 22nd
UCI World Amateur Qualifier RR- 9th
So there it is. I know what I need to work on and I am coming up with my evil plan for next year.
I wrote a lot of Race reports but didn't publish many because they seamed in hindsight like bitching. I will try and publish more next year.

Pain and Discontent.

Mount Evans 2011

This years race seamed to start a little slower than usual, because of the down canyon headwind. It was really easy to sit in but when you went to the front it was really fucking hard. No one wanted to work, not surprising, but frustrating. I've been asked this before and my response is always the same. Question: "why are we going so slow?" response: "get your ass on the front and find out!" I know my willingness to work has fucked me, but I also want to race in a certain way. In my mind how you do something is more important than the outcome. Have some panache, have a little style and go down swinging.(i'll save the rest of this diatribe for another time)

At the hard left turn between 6&7 miles when the course kicks up, I attacked. The field blew up instantly and a lead group of 10 riders was formed. This was my plan from the start. I was to attack fairly early, make the race selective and thin the herd over rest the course. Our breakaway group stayed together and were working somewhat well together, a few were sitting in but they looked as if they weren’t going to be around long. I was at near the back at the feed station near Echo Lake and had slow down to get a bottle the guys on the front attacked. I threw it in the big ring and sprinted to catch back on, I actually had to brake going uphill around the corner right after the ranger station. The group was now 5: me, two guys from CP racing, Cody from Velo-one racing (who I thought would win) and a guy named Gary who I didn’t know. Cody and Gary(who looked like he was suffering) just drilled it right after I had got back on so I had to slowly ramp it back up, one of the guys from CP popped and the other was on my wheel. He tried to talk me into waiting for his team-mate but I wasn’t having it. “I like you guys but I don’t trust you.” I continued to lift the pace riding away from the remnants of our breakaway group. I kept the leaders in site at about a 30-40 sec gap.

After tree line I could see the gap was coming down at least to Cody, I had problems picking Gary out of the field fodder from the other groups(dammed Grey kit). When I caught Cody with less than ten miles to go I was starting to cramp, but I respect a man of his talents so I put in a bit of an effort, he held on for a minute but he popped off right after my next little serge.

I kept thinking I saw Gary up the road but when I would catch that rider it wouldn’t be him. So I kept pushing on. The wind was making the top interesting in the switch backs, block head to beautiful tailwind. With about a mile to go my legs were cramping horribly, at 1 KM to go I had to stand just to keep turning them over. I stood most of the way near the end. Not dancing on the peddles more like pulling my feet out of deep mud. I’m sure it wasn’t pretty to witness. I did everything I could to maintain my pace, I just kept telling myself not to slow down. The dialog in my head was nothing but venom spiked anger directed at yours truly (Hypoxia and lactic acid are a cocktail not suited for everyone's pallet.). I crossed the line in 2nd. A couple of minutes later 3rd place rolled in looking about like I felt. I love the climb, I love the race, but I am surprised how decimated It leaves you. 24 hours later and I still feel altered.

Iron Horse

Iron Horse RR:

This is the last year I do Iron Horse. I love the course but hate the event, I feel the same about LOTAJO. The fucking citizen riders ruin the event for me. The mixing of categories doesn’t help my disposition towards the event. That said here is how the day went down:

My group took off on the false flat out of Durango this part of the race is weird guys are twitchy but the pace is civilized because no one wants to burn any matches. So the first ten miles should have been uneventful but you mix traffic furniture and earlybird citizen riders and it becomes more than slightly stressful. At one point the pelaton is passing a citizen and he swerves into us causing people to swerve, smoke their brakes wheels crossed the guy behind me hit my rear wheel and went down. I never looked back! (later I found that I had burned a 3” strip down to the threads on my rear wheel)

After that excitement I started moving up to the front for the start of the first climb. Going into this race I told my self I didn’t give a fuck about results just wanted to be aggressive and race my bike. I did not want to be a passenger I was going to bring the race to the group. At the start of the small rollers I was on the front dictating pace and that is where I lived all the way to the ski resort. A couple of other guys would pull through but most would feel the mind on their face and quickly find a place to hide. This started frustrating me but I remembered my thinking going into this and my mood improved. By the time we got to the ski resort our group was down to less than 25 guys out of the 150 starters.

After a short descent we started climbing Coal Bank pass. Right at the first kick upwards we caught the 4/5 main group which had mixed with the pro women. Guys attacked making which wheel to follow very confusing, so I just drilled it hoping for the best. I found myself in a small group of less than ten guys and we stayed together for a short time up Coal Bank. About half way up the climb a guy from my group attacked I covered it and countered attacked half our little group matched my move. A guy from another team drilled it right after that I followed again but didn’t have the answer when his teammate drilled it shortly thereafter. With about than 2 miles left till the summit of Coal Bank 3 were up the road 1 guy in between me and the leaders and then me and a guy named Mike who had also done some of the donkey work early on in the race. We went
over the top of Coal Bank in this order.

Mike and I raced up Molas Pass trying to shed one another and slowing trying to close the gap to 4th place. I put in a hard dig 1km to the finish and just barely off the 4th place wheel. The descent off of Molas is one of the fastest twistiest things ever, I reminded my self of the plan and tried to shut off my brain and just go for it down the 50+mph descent. I maintained line of site on 4th place but he was prying open a gap on me. At the bottom I Knew the gap was unbridgeable, but I drilled it up the false flat drag into Silverton and with 1km to go my left quad started to cramp and I felt like I was peddling squares. I crossed the line in 5th.
After the race a fellow competitor looked at my rear tire and noted it looked a little rough. I was more than a little pissed and freaked out, I could believed it held but also pissed because of some citizen I could have died if that tire would hace let go on one of the descents. I guess sometimes it pays to be lucky.

* Note: I went to bed in 5th place woke up and for some reason I was in 6th. I don't know what happened but it sucks. Last night I went to the 40th anniversary party for the Iron Horse Classic
it was cool to is the classic bikes and the old pics of the racers. The party made me realize this was once a great race not just some glorified fun ride. I know real racers still race, but i fear my sport is becoming a watered down parody of itself.