Sunday is Funday

This past Sunday ROCKED.

I was excited to wake up to the gentle hum of cars driving by my apartment window on dry streets, instead of the dreaded "shwooosssssssh" of said cars in sloppy winter road conditions. I had gotten a great 9 hours of sleep that previous night, and woke up with both a fresh mind, and fresh legs.

On top of it all, I had cleaned my coffee maker the previous night and knew I could look forward to a delicious (and fast) pot of my favorite sanity-inducing elixir.

What did all of these circumstances mean? What was the celestial prophecy that I was being handed on this fair February morning?

I was going to ride my bike - Ride it fast, and ride it hard.

After breakfast, and my prodigiously prepared cup of java, I met up with some bad actors at the Arboretum for an 11:00 group ride. The roads were a little bit damp near the arb (and throughout), but our spirits were all high. It was good to see some familiar faces - Julio Jacabo and Kevin Berger were there. Steve "Sparky" Knurr decided to make an appearance too, which was cool since I've heard so many references to the guy, but never gotten to ride with him. David Ziehr, Yvonne, Jordan, Rachel, and Kenny completed the core of the group who I knew. A couple of other strong guys showed up for the ride too - Seth and Dan, whom I hadn't met but enjoyed riding with.

Our route took us out of Madison to Belleville, and on towards New Glarus before looping home. We hoped to get in a steady 4 hours of riding - Not bad for February. I was pleased that after a jaunt through the Arb, my legs warmed up and were kicking pretty well. I spent some time hanging out in the middle of the group, chatting with people and getting used to riding in a sizable mass of cyclists once again.

Once we got to the outskirts of Belleville, Kevin and I took the reigns. Well... Actually, Kevin plowed up a hill and I tagged on thinking I might have an opportunity to shoot the breeze with him. I was wrong. We basically pulled at tempo until Belleville, whereupon Kevin shot off with 1K to go. Thank goodness he throws a good draft, because it was all I could do to hold on and save enough juice to make a go coming around him when we came into town.

Once out of Belleville, the pace started out innocuously enough. But then somebody had to make a joke about Steve... And he responded by upping the tempo up a steep little power climb. My lungs were getting a nice warm up amidst the chilly air, but the legs felt great. We made a turn on to Hwy W, and again motored up a westward incline. Kevin and I set the pace up the next brief hill, and we wrapped around into New Glarus for some coffee and food. Ziehr pulled a wonderful acrobatic maneuver and somehow caught his fender in his spokes as we took off from the Fat Cat Cafe after refueling. Classic - But I'd probably do the same thing, so I have to cut the guy some slack.

The way out of New Glarus is where the real rubber met the road. It wasn't too long before we faced a stiff head wind, and the big guys up front (Kevin and Dan) chose to keep warm by igniting their diesel engines and pulling us all along in echelon formation. The smaller guys seemed to jostle a bit for slipstreams, and I was reminded of the impending race season. Felt great! Each hill on the way back offered an opportunity to duke it out. First, I targeted Kevin as a challenge. I'd let him rocket up the climb, and then try to close the gap before settling into a solid pace beside him. Julio decided to play ninja games with us, and sneak-attacked us near the top of a steep road. If it hadn't have been for Steve's cheer from behind, I wouldn't have known what hit me. The move caught me by surprise, but I managed to accelerate just in time. I went to shift and put in a counter attack, but my heavy winter glove missed the lever, and I only managed to hold with Julio to the top. Next time, I'll be ready.

The next series of hills offered a chance for Ziehr to strut his stuff, as he came breezing past on the lower exposure of a medium-length power-climb. Realizing that he went a bit early, I steadily upped my pace before making a move. I chose to test my limits here, and go much earlier than ideal. My acceleration felt incredible (I love my bike), and I popped through three successive gears on the way up. Unfortunately, Julio must have known my limits more than I did, and played my move to his advantage. He waited until my cadence started to drop, and then lunged from behind me, just squeezing by to take the hilltop.

This ignited a bit of competitive nature that I hadn't felt in a while, and I dug deep into my reserves to mount a counter attack. I figured that if I jumped past him over the crest of the hill, that the downhill would buy me a bit of recovery before the next slightly uphill section. My legs on fire, I made four or five hard pumps past Julio, and tucked into the quick descent. As soon as the road pointed upward again, I took to the drops and attacked a-la-Pananti up a quick rise. Once my move was done, I looked back to ascertain the damage. I saw Julio coming down the previous hill, and thought that my move had worked.

I missed Kevin in the periphery.

In Ullrich-fashion, he barreled past me and never looked back. Not far behind him, Dan provided my only hope of catching on to Kevin's wheel. Once Dan was within a bike length of me, I jumped forward to catch his wheel as he passed. A quick moment of recovery on Dan's wheel allowed me to take stock of the situation. About 30 meters ahead of us was Kevin, plugging up a ~4% incline. I figured I'd let Dan pull me up to within 5-10 meters and then make another move to attack Kevin.

I slipped by Dan's right side, in the saddle, and then lunged forward and popped up a cog to pass by Kevin. Bad move. After getting a solid gap, I totally popped. I sat up, and Kevin cruised by, closely followed by Dan. I ended up giving chase over the next few rollers, and managed to catch back on to their wheels once, before Kevin shot away from the group at the base of a descent.

A few breaths, and kind words from Kevin later, and the whole group was back together.

We got one more opportunity to duke it out, and Kevin took the prize on a quick hill into Verona.

Sparky won the Tree sprint on Seminole as we came into Madison. I think he also referred to me as "Thomas the Tank Engine," at some point. Eh... Maybe he was talking about Kevin or Dan, I'm not sure. Whatever, it was a cool reminder of my childhood.

So... What did I learn on this ride?
1) Don't attack too early... And now I know what "early" means for my maximum intensity attacks.

2) Julio is going to be a great guy to race with, and a silent torpedo to launch for points.
3) Kevin makes my legs hurt.

4) I've got a lot more confidence about my own fitness heading into next week's first collegiate race.

Time to bring it to Murray, KY.

Regards,

Thanks for reading.

Slap in the face

Oh man. Last night I went to bed thinking that today would be completely different.

I was planning on having a leisurely morning (which I did), reading a little evolutionary theory, getting some P. Chem done, and then going on a nice long outdoor ride with some strong guys from town.

What did I wake up to? Snow! Surprise - It's Wisconsin, you schmuck!

Oh well, I suppose I can still get some quality training in, but I was really stoked to get out on a quality group ride. So now I'm left with a bit more of an afternoon than I had originally planned.

On the schedule (not in order of priority):

• Arguing with creationists on YouTube comment boards when I get bored. Dirty pleasure.
• Yoga baby! I love this stuff, my flexibility is already improving, and it sure does make you strong fast.
• Emailing a professor I'm interested in talking with about organic chemistry/natural products/biochemistry research, and my future as a student.
• Hopefully hanging out with some people.
• Laundry - Can't escape it.
• Homework - Probability distributions! Boltzmann Constants! Lagrange multipliers! Oh my! I feel more like a physicist/engineer than a biochemist these days, but it's pretty interesting stuff.
• Finding true love? Hahaha - NAH! Bachelorhood has it's perks.

Maybe tomorrow I'll get back on two wheels, and show some people how this whole sport is done. Oh yea... Only 1 week to my first RR of the season. Should be fun!

Because Matt Waite Said So

You know those people you meet, who always have to have the latest and greatest gadget? When their phone doesn't have the newest app, they're the first ones firing up the 3G (oops - 4G) connection to download it. A new ad in Bicycling magazine touts a high-tech TT frame which saves 0.0002 femto seconds on a 40K and they're the first on the waiting list. You know - Those people who signed up to be the first commercial space tourists. Them...

Well... My friend Matt Waite isn't one of those types - But the guy just can't bring himself to appreciate a blog page unless it varies from time to time. As such, he has been harping me to update this one for a couple of weeks now.

I feel it's necessary to oblige Matt, because if I don't, he'll grind me to dust on the next group ride just to drive his point home. I don't feel like begging for mercy just yet this season, so I'm going to cook up a new post instead.

Well, since the time in Telluride, I've had some major ups and downs. For the sake of brevity, I'll summarize in an orderly fashion...

On the positive side:

• I Got to ride outside with James and B. Fosler... In January! For 4+ hours too. The ride was great, and I definitely felt the base that I had been working diligently towards since November.
  
  
• I've summed up my training volume and calculated that, on average, I've been getting about 10 hours per week indoors (until recently... See below). Considering that most of this has been endurance and tempo work, I'm feeling pretty confident in my base for the race season.
  
  
• I'm sticking with my lifting schedule (until recently), and finally achieved a long-awaited goal of putting up "plates" (135lb) on the bench. For me, this is good progress... and I don't really want to put on any extra upper body muscle now. My squat has increased by 50lbs for the same number of reps, and I've finally honed my dead lift technique.
  
  
• I'm feeling pretty comfy on the rollers, though I still need to work on that no-handed one-legged stunt.
  
  
• I've increased one gear at my LT since the early fall. Not sure where this lands on the wattage scales... I hope to get a power test done soon.
  
  
• I am officially racing collegiate category A! HEYA! This has been a goal since my freshman year, and with my category 3 upgrade this summer I qualified to race with the big boys in the MWCCC. I'm really excited.

On the negative:

• Got sick in CO. Started to fight it off, but the ride back in a cold van with little sleep definitely didn't help. Felt better during the first week of school. Got sick again, and stayed sick for about 12 days. Finally got over it yesterday, as far as I can tell.
  
  
• Due to sickness, I haven't been consistent in my training for 9 days. I don't think this will kill me in the end, though, and I'll choose to see it as an extended rest period. Considering that it all fell about 2 weeks before our first collegiate races, it may have been for the better anyway.

You know what? That isn't so bad, really. It seemed so much worse while I was in the midst of whatever strain of the plague I had. Looks like things are shaping up well, actually.

I plan on posting much more regularly now that the spring racing scene is starting up.

Here's some of what to expect in future updates:

• Shenanigan alerts/updates from upcoming UW-Cycling events and race weekends.
• Race reports and training/ride stories.
• Details on the upcoming season with Team Wisconsin/MC2 (Our kits are sweet - Think '09 Lotto Team)
• Pictures!
• My top 10 list of reasons why the Trek Stores of Madison should be your LBS.
• USA Cycling Collegiate Nationals
• School - (Hint... I've decided "Brian Stoveken, Ph.D" has a nice ring to it...)
• A thorough review of my favorite coffee shops.
• Some essays regarding critical thinking (or lack thereof) and the perception of science in our society.

There - Even the likes of Matt Waite should be pleased with all of that to look forward to.

Until then - Best regards, and thanks for reading.

Telluride Day 1

This is what we were treated to at the top of the mountain today. Revelation lift, around 12,200 feet. Bluebird day, 30+ degrees. The skiing was a bit sketchy due to frozen snow melt from the day before, but no problem if you stuck to the off-piste terrain. And there is plenty of gnarly, bumped, rocky, steep terrain to stick to.

Most of our day was spent learning the layout of the mountain. Greg, Andrew, our two roommates Jeremy and Evan, and myself all took off to explore at about 9:00. We opened the lifts, and were blessed with a warm enough day to enjoy the high mountain. When we weren't skiing, we gathered lots of quality pictures.

The word about Telluride is that it has some of the most breath-taking scenery in ski-country. I think Andrew agrees:

We skied every type of run today - Which is saying something, because Telluride ranks it's runs in the following manner:
Green Circle - Beginner

Double Green Circle - Advanced Beginner

Blue Square - Intermediate

Double Blue Square - Advanced Intermediate

Black Diamond - Advanced

Double Black Diamond - Expert Only

We hit 'em all! Green through double-diamond.

Jeremy and I took a narrow, zipper-line, double-diamond run as our final challenge of the day. It was beneath the #10 lift, and we had people cheering for us as we hop-turned our way to the bottom. High-fives went all around when we got to the bottom - Thanks in no small part to Jeremy's spotting of a rocky outcropping.

Greg found a similar run off of the Apex chair, and was all smiles when he returned to the condo. Hopefully he'll show me the way to it over the next few days.

Beyond the skiing, we had a couple experiences with the local wildlife. During lunch, we were discovered by some hungry local birds who had no problem with pecking food straight from our hands. Andrew caught a couple of images of the action, and the ensuing joy that it apparently brought me.

While meandering down a run off of the Prospect lift, we came across a local Telluride legend - Stickers the Porcupine. He was pretty friendly, and as we found out later, he's been here since 2004. I guess he likes the attention.

Shortly thereafter, we discovered an interesting sign:

I guess we know how to get home when the time comes - But we don't plan on leaving this mountain paradise anytime soon.

Copper Mountain FTW!

We took our time on Friday, having a leisurely morning with coffee and mountain views. Then, we booted up and hitched it over to the Frisco Station to catch our bus to Copper Mountain. It was a short, crowded bus ride, but we were all pretty stoked to hit the slopes on such a sunny day - Even our bus driver agreed that it was an abnormally beautiful morning in Summit County.

Copper was great. The skiing was much, much larger than I had thought it would be. Luckily, Taylor had a general idea of the layout, and provided us with some good advice on terrain choices. We stuck to the groomed blues in the center of the mountain for our warm up, and made our way to the Super Bee lift, doing laps on the lengthy cruisers and gladed sections between them. The lift system is pretty cool at Copper, with high speed lifts everywhere. This, combined with very little skier traffic made for a pretty epic day - And some genuine smiles:

Even though it was below freezing, the sun made it feel like a day at the beach at times. We took a moment to lounge at the base of the Super Bee while we waited for some of our group to finish carving up the mountain.

When all was said and done, we got 4 or 5 hours of solid skiing in, and made our way back to the bus (which we miraculously caught just in the nick of time). I think the altitude, energy expenditure, and fresh air was taking its toll on Taylor - I mean, we were all hungry, but...

Yea. It was a good day.

We packed up the next morning, and started our journey towards Telluride around 10:30. I wish I had pictures from the drive, especially the section of I-70 through Glenwood Canyon. Honestly, this was probably the most gorgeous, um, gorge, that I've ever seen in my life. Dramatic monoliths of striated rock revealed themselves around every corner in the road - I don't think I've ever seen anything that can compare.

We pulled in to Telluride around 3:30 (about the same time as the Hoofer's buses), and proceeded to unload all of our stuff before going grocery shopping, and scraping our jaws off the floor after seeing the prices at the market.

Megan and I had a little adventure after we dropped off the van at the free parking lot. We were told that there would be a free shuttle from the parking lot back to our condos... But when we arrived, there was a sign posted saying: "Service will resume 4/05/2010." Thankfully, a local happened to come by, and gave us directions to the Chondola (a combination chairlift/gondola), and we managed to find our way back to the condo. This makes us mountain survival experts in my book.

More to come on the first days at Telluride soon!

To Hell We Ride!

Greg - Glad to be out of Nebraska.

Okay, I'll preface this by admitting the obvious - tackling an 18 hour cross-country drive isn't easy. It isn't something to be taken lightly. It is inherently dangerous to travel via car, and that danger increases exponentially when you include a significant winter storm in the course of your travels.




We departed from Madison a little bit behind schedule yesterday afternoon. I was well aware of the impending winter storm warning for most of Iowa and southern Wisconsin - but was under the impression that we would have left early enough to have made De Moines before any serious weather hit. That way we would have had a good spot to hold up while he storm passed.


I was wrong.




What followed were some of the wildest hours of winter driving I've experienced in the past couple of seasons.


I blame Andrew - He totally jinxed the weather when he exclaimed, "Wow, we haven't seen ANY snow yet!"

Within 30 seconds the first flakes were falling.
Within 2 minutes, visibility decreased to 1/4 mile.
Within 5 minutes, it was difficult to discern the road from the ditch.


This first wave passed fairly quickly - much to our relief. Unfortunately we continued to hit band after band of snow for most of the next 10 hours. Oddly, the roads never accumulated any of the stuff, leaving for pretty decent traction. The real problem was just the drifting snow, which at
times reduced visibility (and our speed) to nearly nothing.

On top of this all, our problems were made worse by incredibly cold temperatures and an incredibly weak heating system in our vehicle. My toes were cold once we were mid-way through Iowa, and by the time my driving shift was over (just past the Iowa-Nebraska border), I could hardly feel them. And it made me angry... Like Godzilla, apparently:

Andrew took over, bravely guiding us through the worst of the snow-blown I-80 corridor. Greg was his faithful copilot... And Megan and I served as free-lance photographers for a bit. We all just tried to stay warm for the rest of the night.


Finally, the morning came.


With the sun came the sunglasses - Lookin' good, Andrew:

Around 11:00 that morning, we finally made it to Boulder CO, and picked up our friend, Taylor from her home in town. Her family was incredibly welcoming, and prepared us all breakfast - A welcome warm meal for such a group of weary travelers. Major thanks to the Ellisons for their hospitality!




We high-tailed it out to I-70, and made our way up into the mountains. After the Eisenhower tunnel, I spotted one of my favorite road signs - "Runaway Truck Ramp." These things always make me chuckle:

We made it Frisco later that night, and all turned in early after a delicious dinner at the Backcountry Brewpub and Pizzaria in town.

Switching Gears

Winter break!

Having managed to survive the final weeks of the past semester, and pump out some promising results in the lab, I now find myself with time on my hands to relax and spend with family/friends.

I had a great time over the holidays with my family. Sharing conversation over a series over delectable meals, watching a great movie (The World's Fastest Indian - Netflix it sometime), and spending some quality hours on the slopes of Cascade Mountain. My first few turns of the year were a little bit wobbly, but it wasn't long before I had my edges back under me, and was cranking out some turns like in previous seasons. While I'm happy to just rediscover my ski-legs, it seems like my parents have both made considerable strides in their ski technique since I last had the chance to ski with them. It makes sense though, considering my Mom is a PSIA instructor (read: mad skillz), and both parents are highly active members of the National Ski Patrol (NSP). I wish I had the time this year to continue patrolling myself, but other things have taken priority this season, and I've made the decision to rejoin the patrol once my undergraduate education is over. Anyway, it's always fun to ski with the family.

When I think back on my childhood, it feels like I was pretty much brought up on skis. The winter meant several trips to local ski hills, and once my mom and I got my dad back into skiing, multiple trips to mountain resorts out west. Steamboat, Breckenridge, Keystone, and Big Sky have been past destinations. On my own (well, in the company of others than my parents), I've managed to conquer the steeps of Park City too.

And now I find myself on the verge of yet another winter mountain adventure. I'll be heading out to Telluride, Colorado tomorrow along with a few friends, a van, plenty of music, and about 24 hours of driving ahead of us. Hopefully we can add a bit of good luck to that list too - After all, the common adage about our destination probably isn't "To-Hell-You-Ride" for nothing, right?

Right now I find myself amidst the final stages of packing, hoping to not forget anything too vital. I've been through this before, but I've always managed to find myself missing something by the time I get settled in my hotel room or condo. I think it's inevitable, but I'm doing my best to assure that I don't leave something like my skis, boots, backpack, cellphone or my underwear behind... Yea that wouldn't be good. I think I've got it all under control though - Optimism can fill the void left by any of these modern amenities anyway. Well... Maybe not underwear - That would just be cold and awkward considering the destination.

Well - this should be fun. A good change of pace from school, indoor training, and the frigid recent temperatures of south central Wisconsin. All I can do is hope for good weather during the drive, and copious amounts of powder snow once we get there.

I'll try to keep up semi-daily posts during the trip. Hopefully there will be some pictures too, so stay tuned for more!

Best regards, thanks for reading.