Well, I survived the first MBAA race of the season. I actually didn’t do half bad either. I think I ended up getting 6th in the singlespeed division out of a little over 20 starters (and an even 20 finishers). It was a 20 mile course, and my time was somewhere around 1hr 42min. Not too shabby for no real training. Unfortunately, I didn’t buy an MBAA license for the season, or I’d already have 51 points. Oh well. I’m definitely not going to make the next race, but if I make the one after that, maybe I’ll buy a license and see if I can get a few points.

The race course was really fast and super-dusty. There were 3 loops: long, sport, and tech. My race was Long-Sport-Tech-Sport-Tech. It came out to 20 miles (8+3+3+3+3). As usual, I went way too fast off the line, and tried to keep up with the lead group (read: dead sprint for the first few miles), and quickly got dropped. I kept the end of those first 4-6 guys in sight for all of the long loop, which was good, but just couldn’t quite keep their opening pace. However, after being passed by a couple more on the first lap, I settled into a nice groove and started riding my own race. The long loop went pretty well, and I finally felt like my legs were working at the end of it. During the first sport-tech loop laps, I concentrated on keeping a good pace, but not killing myself, and keeping the guys I could see on singlespeeds within striking distance.

For the final set of sport-tech loops, I turned it on, and successfully picked off a couple people to put me back up to about where I started in the standings. The only thing that was a bit annoying about the course was the one climb on the tech loop. It was a pretty nice size climb, but nothing too crazy. The only problem was that it was totally crowded and just about impossible to pass anyone (and hence if somebody 10 people up was walking, everyone was stuck). The first time I did it, I got behind another singlespeeder, and we cruised right up it. The second time I was behind somebody who didn’t quite understand that there were higher gears than a granny on their bike, and so when they weren’t walking, they were spinning out. Oh well. I guess everyone else behind me was stuck also…..

All in all, the race went well, and I’m glad that I did it. It was a good time, and it will definitely help me get in shape for the 24 hours of Old Pueblo. Unfortunately, Dan didn’t have as good a time, and ended up getting pretty badly dehydrated and in turn had a DNF. He’s got the full story from his side up on “broken spoke.”:http://brokenspoke.blogspot.com/2006/01/i-suppose-this-is-official-race-update.html That’s him in the picture at the top, look behind the guy with the green and yellow jersey. There’s a couple other quick pics of him and timmy up “in the gallery”:http://www.handlebarsandwich.com/gallery/mbaa-mcdowell, check ‘em out.

I also wanted to mention that I got an email from “Dara”:http://www.daramarksmarino.com the other day in response to my cold-weather riding question, and I thought I would share it with everyone in case anyone else was looking for some advice on over-boots for their winter training. I know I’ll need them for a good bit longer up here…..

My Descente Element shoe covers
(http://www.descenteboulder.com/index.php?do=products&parentID=45)
have been doing a good job of keeping my toes toasty
warm, and they are less expensive than some other
booties out there. They are Kevlar enforced on the
walking surfaces so hopefully won’t tear through too
quickly, but I would still make sure you don’t have on
any spikes. I learned the hard way on that one! I
even layer a set of toe booties underneath the shoe
covers for extra warmth. It also helps if your shoes
are 1/2 a size too big.

Here’s to warm toes!

dara

I’m gonna go see if I can pick some up tomorrow, sounds like a plan to me.

Finally, in closing, I found a couple other blogs that people might be interested in checking out if you’re into the whole ‘blogosphere’ thing:
* “FixedGear”:http://fixedgearcycling.blogspot.com/ – Fixie rider from philly
* “CodaBlog”:http://blog.codahale.com/ – A guy who writes about fixie riding and web programming. Sound familiar?

Definitely check out the second guy there, I dig his style. In fact, in the last two posts he wrote up something about “scriptaculous”:http://blog.codahale.com/2006/01/14/a-rails-howto-simplify-in-place-editing-with-scriptaculous/ (which is what I used for the nifty little menu effects over on the right. click the titles, and you’ll see….), and in the next post he waxed poetic about his “new surly fixie”:http://blog.codahale.com/2006/01/29/papas-got-a-brand-new-bag/, which just looks downright sweet. Nice stuff.

On that note, I’m outta here….