Breezy

Breezy, that's the word the weatherman in chicago describes 30mph with gusts to 45. I was there from thursday through sunday. No riding for 4 days. I did a lot of walking, and stairclimbing. Our hotel had 40 levels to climb. I had 320 miles in the 5 days leading up to the trip. I could have rented a bike, $40/4 hours, but the breezy conditions in chicago did not push hard enough. Renting a tandem would have been fun too, had it been 20d warmer and the dr. did not have class 6 hours a day.

I've never been to chicago. I've been through Illinois a few times, just not in chicago. One thing for sure I know is, Yuppies are everywhere. It disgusts me. Gross. Not only did we almost loose my hearing to these socialmongers, it drove me south. So far south that the closest restaurant was a mile walk in 30degrees from the train. I didn't mind, my date did. We made it to Pleasant House, ate some good pie, the spinach was soso, the chicken was really good. Kind of small portion for $7.5/ea, but worth it, especially after a walk like this. I don't think you could have spotted a yuppie for a mile. Finally some peace.

Pleasant House is byob, the liquor store next to it had an amazing selection of heavey beer, I think maybe 10 fridges that held all the micro stuff, and 1 fridge that had some miller and bud. There was also a happening bar through the joint, which interested me, but we didn't go in. The liquor store had a $20 min. for credit card charges, I had 5 one dollar bills so we stayed dry for this place.


Chicago is a pretty easy place to be as far as we could see. Trains or buses went wherever you wanted. Our maps application on our evo phone was quick to tell us which bus/train stops were needed to get to any location. $14 for all you can ride 3 day pass.

I preferred riding the bus, it goes slower, more stops, and you see more of the city.

We took the bus all the way from south bridgeport to Lincoln Park. There are quite a few places that are good up there. Funny thing about Chicago, when I say its easy place to be, I mean, there aren't waits anywhere. We seriously walked into 11 different restaurants between 7 and 9pm on thurs/fri/sat. and were seated immediately.


First place we ate at was a little south of downtown. I didn't think fries and pizza went together, this place made it happen. 1 slice of pizza was about the size of 1/2 of a mccoy's whole pie. Huge. 1 slice, fries, soda, $5! That's better than subways deal right now! (We did eat there twice.)

Yuppie scale, 1.

Dinner thursday night was at goose island brewery. We were just walking around Uptown and saw the place. Went in and sat down. Kind of underwhelming experience. The food was good, beer was good, just good.
Yuppie scale, 5.



FEAST is a true yuppie paradise. If you didn't walk out of there with a gun to your head after an hour of not hearing the person next to you then well, you may be a yuppie. There's a 98% chance you are if you were there. About 5 minutes in to being seated, looking around there were 111 people there, 107 were between the age of 31 and 38 wearing shoes costing more than than all my clothing combined. Then there was me and the dr. and two old people eating with a younger couple, you guessed it, yuppies.

Food was great here, its not super expensive. Service was exceptional. Portions were large, good value for yuppies, just bring some ear plugs if you haven't experienced the sound of 100 mouths battling for what they assume is their ascribed status.

Pizza was $9, its was really good, and pretty big. Free bread here too. Yuppie scale, 10.

Intelligentisa coffee. Its really good. Like what we have at Union Station in Parisi only its in chicago. If you want the best cup, go here. Yuppie scale, 3.

Filter Coffee. Absolutely the best place to take your laptop, headphones, and waste an entire afternoon drinking coffee. Lots of choices for food, good prices on coffee, good tea too. Really comfortable setting, lots of couches, totally cool to put your feet up. Yuppie scale 2.

Pasta bowl. Want pasta? Look no further. Food is cooked right in front of you at the bar. All the sauces are made to order, same with noodles. We had the special, it was salmon with green pasta and asparagus. $10.50. Something very comforting about chicago, you sit down, you order, you aren't ignored, you get food fast, cooked right in front of you.
Yuppie scale. 4

There are some byob sushi places on Clark st. I believe we were here. Not 100% sure though. Sushi was good. No corkage fee on the big bottle of IPA either. Liquor store is just a few shops down. Yuppie scale, 7.

Groceries aren't hard to find downtown either. At almost all the stops there were aldi stores and a few trader joe's. We bought granola/yogurt/blackberries from trader joe's since our hotel didn't have breakfast. Cost $8. Breakfast for 3 days for two. There $3.99 Argentine screw top bottle wasn't bad either.

Sweet Spot.

Coach shared with me the sweet spot. I don't think I've figured it out yet, but it makes sense. I wasn't too uncomfortable until about 5 miles to go. Then the pain set in. Sweet spot riding from what I am told is riding between level 3 and 4, below your 40k tt pace. I think thats what I did but we'll find out when I try it again. Here's the ride. I road another 7 miles after wards to cool down, I needed it.


Volker Party Friday! I'll be at 39th all day, from 11-8 so come in and buy stuff.


Helmet Cam view of streetcred Cross here.


These levers look good, I hope they are cheap as the bar wrap.

Lots of parts and bikes for sale!

200 watts.

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At the start of my ride I told myself to just hold at least 200 watts. I originally planned on 2hours. I thought this was going to be a challenge but I ended up getting bored with it. After an hour I was getting colder, the sun was going down and I headed back.

Watt's happening?

So far I have done 2 rides on the new G3 Powertap. Its got 32 thick round spokes on my favorite clincher rim, the A23. The hub itself is super smooth and solid feeling. It gives me data like speed/cadence/power. My ride on sunday went 51 miles. Luckily the kids slept through most of it after having been up sick every night all night.



My watts are way low from 3 years ago. I'm hoping its from a week without sleep and no miles in my legs. I'll keep going to find out.

Volker Party Friday.
Streetcred Crit this saturday.

There was a cyclocross race in tokyo over the weekend. A couple americans were there. Who's idea was it to put 2 barriers 200 meters from the starting line on pavement?

This is a very long video, I think I would hate this course. You have to fast forward to 2:30. If you are getting lapped by a belgium in sand, get out of the way. He ended up lapping all but 5 riders in the race.

Helmet Cam view.

Spooky and Cyclocross Streetcred

Streetcred cyclocross happened. Quite grand. Awesome course, awesome free beer, awesome cold.

We pre road the course twice, There were a lot of turns and it was pretty hard to know where they were, even after pre riding the course, but after the first lap it didn't seem so bad. I raced a new Havocstaff. It is nice! The 57 frame weight was 1200 grams, that with a light fsa headset and 275 gram wcs fork makes the frameset weight at 1550 grams, lighter than 70% of the carbon framesets out there. Plus, it won't crack or explode if something hits it. I like that.


The new frame has pf30 bb, lets you use light retard proof press in bearings, light bb30 cranks, and allows for wider tubes at the welds.

Super stiff, super light, super strong, super USA!

Buy a frame from me and I'll throw in a headset, I'll throw in a ritchey wcs carbon fork for another $220. You won't regret it.

Back to the race, I had a road bike, it was 1/2 gravel/rocks and half pavement/glass. I'll have helmet cam footage soon as long as I made the camera work right. strava with power here.


I raced challenge roubaix tires. On the a23 rim they measure 29mm, fits right into the spooky frame, even with 405mm chainstays. Clearance on the front ritchey fork for the 29s...though the tire says 27.

Sram not shifting right? Measure your housing for the rear derailleur, its gotta be 36cm for it to work right, especially for red. Most bikes we get from factories have shorter housing=bad shifting.

Lots of details on these made in the USA frame, come into Volker39 to check it out.



After a couple laps I was leading the streetcred race, then my tire went flat. I went over to the parking lot and found a pump, it was a super old blackburn pump, it took a while to get air in it and by the time I was rolling again, the new leader was a minute ahead at least. Then the next gravel section I wipe out pretty hard, luckily it was the nds that got hurt, so I get up and finish for 2nd.


Again the streetcred people outdid themselves. The course was quite different from last year, with terrain for all types of bikes, it was tough, hard, had no flow, and was super fun.

Hit that reset button.

I haven't ridden since sunday, I think I might have ridden 4 days out of the past 20. I had a pretty good January, probably road 15 out of the 31 days. Now its time for that reset button.

Last road season I think I hit that button every month. I think every month I had at least 1 bad week of no riding, or very little riding. My big races I "trained" for were tour de grove and tulsa tough. Training consisted of motorpacing swblvd. 3 nights a week 2 weeks prior to the event. I never really got faster last season, I just learned to suffer better. I'm hoping to have a better road year with better miles. So far it isn't happening. I'm a dull lightbulb.

I'm going to drink this huge chocolate milkshake, kill this cold, and live bikes this weekend.

Friday I'll be at 39th working all day, I'll have the CAR there for 1 of you to buy. I should be working on a new spooky havocstaff frame too. American Made Aluminum will be hard to beat this year.

Saturday is 9am TEAM ride with free espresso. Then work at 18th st. from 12-2:30, then off to THEBESTBIKERACEOFTHEMALL.

I'm talking about a 13lb. cx bike.

Tuesday

Sick yesterday and today. Kid was throwing up all over his bed. I pulled a staple out of his leg Saturday night. Were hoping the two aren't linked.

I have a free training account with training peaks. I'm trying to put things in it every day. Training and eating mostly. Last 2 days have been zero.

I had an alarm at 6am, woke up, could barely move, everything was bad. Mouth, throat, eyes, nose, ears, nothing like it before. After a while it started getting better, at least the eyes and ears. Didn't feel like riding my bike in 32degrees and rain, especially when I'm sick.

I miss having a place to go at 6am every morning. Wake up and have no choice but to ride the 8-14 mile commute. It made me fast, mostly because I was always late.



I'll say it again, street cred cyclocross is this saturday in the bottoms. You cannot miss it. Free Beer. $5 racing. Can't beat it. Major tom tubular rims to the winner. Last year keck won those rims, paid $200 to lace them up light hubs and spokes, then he crushed most the cat 3 field all season long on them.

The weekend.

Saturday was streetcred. I hyper extended my left knee on wednesday and it was still sore. I went out for the 9am ride, 40degrees, raining, and went for an hour until I decided to go home and make my kid waffles. In the afternoon I worked downtown, Joe and I built some sweet tb14 23mm wide hard ano rims to some grey smooth hubs...for his soma smoothie. Then I got to building on THESE. 1200 grams, $500. tubeless or tubes.

Then streetcred happened at 3pm. Had a beer and off we went. It was a scavenger hunt, but there was an order to it. 9 checkpoints I think, each had to be in order. It was still around 40degrees and raining. The first checkpoint was across from Strauser True Value on SW Blvd. It was a pretty sweet drag race from v18 all the way down to it, only the first group I was with totally passed the sign that said Hill St., we road an extra 2 miles or so, almost to 635, before turning around. Got back to the intersection of seminary and hill, where there are some epic stairs going all the way up to rosedale middle school.

Then to roanoke park, ran the stairs that are by the tennis court, counted them, 50 total, then off to the 816 bike collective off troost/31st. I was the 3rd to arrive with Buta behind me. They gave me the task of fixing a tire. Wheel off bike, tire off wheel, find the hole, patch it, check for stuff in the tire, install tire/tube, air it up, good to go. Dude says, "Let me sign your manifest so you can go." I reach for it, its not in my pocket, or the other pocket, or the other, its gone. My manifest is gone, my race is over. I am soaked, jeans are soaked, feet are soaked, and my wool jersey is soaked. Soaked.


So I head home, change, ride back to 18th and start the team party.
Cellar Rat hooked up the wine, plus a keg of TallGrass Oasis was in attendance, good.

Sunday, we had a big team ride at 1pm. 24 riders I hear. I was testing some 404 firecrest clinchers. Normally I would argue that wheels aren't worth $2700, these are. When you spend 4 years designing something, you think of everything, these work. Great breaking, super fast, 1540 grams, 58mm deep, super stable, stiff, strong. I can go on. The tubulars are about 1290, so 250 grams lighter, I'd prefer the tubular, but we'll see. There are some 808 firecrest clinchers to test as well.

So, your probably wondering why $2700 58mm deep carbon 1540 gram clinchers are better than $500, 1200 gram clinchers.

The main difference I noticed was cruising speeds. I'm sure a 1200 gram, aero alloy rim with bladed spokes spin up to speed very quickly, but when you hit 23-30mph, they just sail, like a sailboat without a motor. Firecrest means you don't have to pedal to go. I can pretty much guarantee that if you don't have firecrest wheels, then the 1200 gram $500 wheels are better than what you are riding.

If you are a rider that cruises the whole ride, then I'd say the $500 wheels are good, but if you do a lot of accelerating, like from 20 to 40mph, then the firecrest will be much faster. You have to try them!

I really wanted THIS. Its just one of those things where it is stupid to buy something when you owe someone else money for something you already took from them.

My favorite race of the year happens this saturday. Watch out! Street Cred cyclocross!

Cyclocross 2012

To say I'm super excited for cyclocross season in 2012 is an understatement. I put together a little list of races that are posted.

24-26.7.12 Raliegh Midsummer race, dealer camp
15-16.9.12 Herman Dogfish Cross
22-23.9.12 MANIONS CX
26.9.12 Gateway Cross Cup - Cross After Dark Saint Louis Missouri USA C2
29-30.9.12 Boss Cross 1+2
6-7.10.12 360 Races
13.10.12 USGP of Cyclocross New Belgium CupFort Collins, CO USA C1
14.10.12 USGP of Cyclocross New Belgium CupFort Collins, CO USA C2
20-21.10.12 Joules Cross Lawrence
27-28.10.12 Boss Cross 3+4
3-4.11.12 Colavita Cup, BLVD. CUP
10.11.12 HPT
10.11.12 USGP of Cyclocross Derby City Cup Louisville, KY USA C1
11.11.12 USGP of Cyclocross Derby City Cup Louisville, KY USA C2
16.11.12 The Jingle Cross Rock - Rock 1 Iowa City, Iowa USA C2
17.11.12 The Jingle Cross Rock - Rock 2 Iowa City, Iowa USA C2
18.11.12 The Jingle Cross Rock - Rock 3 Iowa City, Iowa USA C1
1-2.12.12 Boss Cross 5+6
8-9.12.12 Capital Cup
26/29/31 Localcycling Races
29.12.12Chicago Cyclocross Cup New Year's ResolutionBloomingdale, IL USA C2
30.12.12Chicago Cyclocross Cup New Year's ResolutBloomingdale, IL USA C2
12 - 13.1.13 American National Championships Madison, WI USA CN