Goldsprints, Track, hopefully summer soon

May brings the track season to a start, am I ready, heck no. I have only ridden the track once this year, partially to test out my new tire wheel combo, which is a great success (thanks Alan for helping me make a right mess in tyre over gluing everything). The problem with April / May in Oregon is that it's still rainy, unpredictable and velodrome plus rain = big no no. The past few days have been very cold for this time of year... 4 degrees C the other day.
If the weather clears up and gets a touch warmer  I will be heading out to the velodrome at lunch for some practice sessions. Things go so fast and the first track race of the season is this Saturday 8th, so I will see what happens with no practice! it will be good warmup anyway!

Earlier this week, I went to a Goldsprint race. I actually went to help set up, as it was setup by Team Beer. It was held on the outside patio of the Doug Fir restaurant,venue and lounge (mum and ruth have been there). We set up a projector and the bikes. These races are a monthly occurrence by Team Beer and get quite popular in the summer. A few of the lads and lasses from Team beer entered the competition along with other members of the public and local bikers who heard about the event and came along to win prizes. I also entered the race, just to have a laugh, turns out I got through to the mens finals and then won! must have been no fast people showed up. Regardless, it netted me a prize of a new bike tyre, free concert tickets at the Doug fir and $25 coupon for dinner. Sweet.

 above is Andrew and Justin, god know why they are shirtless, it was bastard cold.

Me and Beth : Beer Winners : gayest pose ever, not that theres anything wrong with gay poses.

My shoulder injury from last year has re-occured to give me some grief. It has been sore of recent weeks, sore when using the computer mainly with a dull pain. I went to see my PT again. He basically said I need to do some more strengthening work to get my shoulder back in proper alignment. But why hurt now? he suggested that since I spend a lot of time (5hr+per day) on the computer at work, I should look at the ergonomic position and optimize it so it doesn't put stress on my shoulder. My position has been poor and thus been incrementally detrimental over time, to a point where it's reached my pain threshold. So... more exercises... ergonomic evaluation of my computer setup at work and a lot of ice. It's starting to hurt when I ride my bike, so I need to get this sorted quick smart.

The rest of it... oh only 40 or so hours of my week! yeah Yakima / Kemflo... going good...blar... blar.... we have been doing some decent product research on a few new lines, nothing extravagant but other than that i'm really chomping at the bit to get going on something innovative, things need shaking up, the mentality of some is like we are living in the depression. Consumers are up buying stuff and being real people, lets exploit it!! whoot whoot.

The first EPIC ride of the year

A lot of things have happened in my life recently, but I write about one thing because of it's epic-ness.

Yesterday, Sunday I set off on a ride, a ride which I thought was going to be normal. Team Beer, Ironclad and myself wearing Yakima kit, met up front of the PSU library, the destination : Multnomah Falls 75mile round trip. Sounds like a nice ride init ? - read on...

Multnomah Falls - on a nice day! 36miles east of Portland

While we were meeting at the library- we recruited some PSU riders, so the group was pretty big. We all rolled out on the beginning of a nice day. Temps were reasonable (42f /6 celcius), it looked dry, as we got further out of the city center the wind started picking up, by the time we were on the historic highway the winds were well over 20mph and I would say gusting to 40mph, this makes a 10mile gradual uphill climb up to Crown point pretty difficult with all the energy being sucked from you resulting in a slower net speed. In fairly minimal riding gear the high winds only served to reduce body temperature and energy. As we got to Crown Point, the highest point of the ride, the winds were so bad, I was actually scared of being blown off my bike, several times on the decent, you would enter a corner, hit a wall of wind that would slow you from 30 to about 15mph!

Crown Point, note this was taken on a nice day, not the thundermomma day that we were there.

After bombing the decent from Crown Point we got to the Falls, admittedly a bit cold. Stopping for a few mins, warming up and headed back towards Portland. A nice climb ahead of us, which George from Team Beer absolutely destroyed, we regrouped at the top of the climb, to the West all we could see was darkness - dark dark rain clouds.
By now the temps had dropped a tad and yes a sea of rain awaited us, sure enough in the next few minutes it started raining heavy, this combined with a low temp made the rain heavy and cold. Dressed for a dryish day, 30 miles to home.. no fenders very very wet and cold...

a nice view from Crown Point, i'm sure someone has a shitty view, like the one we saw.

.... 20 miles of riding still left to go, no talk in the group, we were all suffering in silence... violent upper body shivers kicked in which were transferred down my arms to the handlebars , my front wheel looked like it was wobbling! Keeping speed above 22 to try and stay warm, I couldn't feel my legs, feet or hands, soaked to the bone no warmth. We lost the PSU group 15 miles ago, hope they got home ok. Visions of hot showers and warm clothes kept us going.
At this point in the ride, I found my mind drifting off, maybe it was trying to lock out the numbness that my body was going through, it was sort of strange and scary, in the kind of "am I going to get pneumonia" scary.

75miles later Team Beer, Yakima and Ironclad rolled into Portland. Well done chaps. Epic.

I later got word from the PSU guys that they got back ok, they had a few flats and eventually got a car ride home from Troutdale.

Team Beer Bowling invite 2009

This Friday night was well sorted , the 2009 Team Beer Bowling Invitational. 10 of Portlands cycle teams were invited to compete in a night of ten pin.

Dressed in white painters suits (coveralls) representing with Yakima Logos and Spray painted skulls, gold chains and gold $$ signs, we managed to win Best Costume trophy. (remember these are bike guys so they think they have to wear spandex everywhere)

After making it through to the 1/4 finals we got closed down by Bike City Racing before the semi finals, only by a few points (I think less than 50 total game). We lost to a team which included a pro bowler, read wrist support, own custom ball and big dollop of lame.

We got a lot of props for our unique warm up jives, which include Lane Lame Push ups and Striker Saucy Situps before our turn to roll.

Team Ironclad won the night, with strike after strike - with a lot of talk on the street about an outside ringer being employed ;)

update* the guys rolling were actually Obra racers - Ironclad wanted to make sure that was known.

So it's true, Yakima Vigilantes have balls and can roll em.



Oh yeah and teh superbowl was this weekend... nuff said ... bunch of loosers.