First, LA was a total blast. I wasn’t prepared to actually like the city, but I did. The people were friendly and laid back, it was easy to drive in, and shockingly easy to bike in. All of our cycling except for the actual rally (which we rode through the city to get to) was done in the city itself during the morning commute on 6 lane streets, and we had no honks, yells, or problems. Makes you realize just how tough it is to ride here sometimes.
Anyway, Thursday night I met up with Jim Verhuel to ride the criterium race. It’s 50 laps around a ½ mile block with two right turns. He let me borrow his corsa with attached powertap, so I’ll have some data soon as he emails it to me. I didn’t want to get anyone mad at Jim for bringing another darned bent, so I resolved to hang at the back and not get too carried away, since I’m not used to making turns at 28mph in a peloton. Plus there were former riders there from team Mercury and CSC, among others so it was going to be hardcore. So as soon as the group kicked it up, they shook off the people in front of me, and that effectively shook me off as well, so the rest of the race was all about keeping them from looping me too much. I bounced between 25-28mph, with occasional dips to 23-24, and the breakaway group stayed at a steady 28. I got passed by the entire main peloton once, and the breakaway group got me three times. I started reeling in people soon after that. The crit was cut short though – someone took a bad spill at the beginning of turn 6 and had to get taken away in an ambulance. Hope he’s ok. I hung out for a long time with JV and some of his crit friends afterwards. They were impressed to see another fast bent rider.
Friday was the meet N greet at the shop, where I met up with Dana Leiberman. Dana runs a phenomenal shop, and he seems to be just ahead of the path I am trying to take. He was overweight and now he’s extremely fit (his calves are monstrous), has a coach and is competing in races like the furnace creek 508 and RAO. He introed me to Rob, who was leading a 40 mile ride out of the shop going over to the famous Mulholland Drive.
Saturday as I’m preparing for the ride John lauer shows up! You should recognize JL, but if not, he’s been a distance competitor on uprights and switched to bents 2-3 years ago with a ti-aero, and now has bought a carbent as well. He’s done very well, including a 3rd place finish at Calvin’s this year. So Jl, Rob, Bob, and myself set out from the shop, and pick up Dana along the way and ride through the valley. Once we start climbing it never stopped. We rode 4-5 miles of steady 4-6% grade until we turned off onto Mulholland Drive, across from the Hollywood sign. Then it becomes a steady 8% for another 5 miles with bumps up to 11-12 for stretches. It’s a massive quad burn and we just don’t have anything like it around here. Once you get to the top, you bounce up and down. By the time we were done, 6 percent hills felt like flats. Rob and John led a pretty fast pace up them too. Not having ridden the route before I didn’t know when the hills would end, so I held back and rode with Dana about 15 seconds back. A couple screaming descents after touring through the billion dollar homes and we’re back on the flats and back at the shop.
The carbent is MONEY by the way. The rear triangle is as solid as concrete. It’s a much improved design over the Carbon Aero. With all that climbing I still stayed in the middle ring (although it’s a 32 rear cassette and I did hit the 32 a few times). The only negative is the idler and chain setup is very close to the bike, and thus I get a lot more chaingrease on my thigh and calves.
So when we got back, the vendor show was just kicking off. As I’m walking up the parking lot I see a p-38. Hmm – looks like the same age as my old one. Hmm – it’s got reflective stickers in the same place. Oh wait – it IS mine. Small world, but the guy who bought it from me is loving it over the ti-aero – he says he’s a much faster climber with it.
It was still early so John offered to let me use his shower at his hotel. So we rode back there and got cleaned up, then ate either 2nd breakfast or 1st lunch. We were starving after the climbfest and picked up his wife and headed for quiznos. Ate and headed back to the shop, where I hung out most of the day with John, Sloji, I’m Bent (Johnathan), and Rich Pinto. Tried a bunch of bikes, including the cruzbike which I absolutely LOATHED, but the chicks were cute, and wore skin tight thin lycra short shorts. I put a bunch of miles on a vk2 – I couldn’t resist. It’s a nice friendly lowracer, but feels weird with a fairly upright seat angle. Most of the attendees were the fat and bearded set, but it was still a good hangout.
Afterwards, John, Elaine, Dana and I went out for dinner and chatted. Dana and John are partners for the RAO, and they’ve invited me to do a 500 mile race in Utah – the HooDoo 500. I’ve got some work to do y’all!
Sunday I met John at his hotel and we rode over to Dana’s and picked him up. We were trying to get some good fast miles in before the slow-fest the beach trail rally would be. So we rode up the mountain again and down through Bel-air, the sunset strip, and the PCH before meeting up with the gang and riding 15 miles down the trail and turning around. Had great BBQ afterwards and won a set of blue-lens sunglasses in the raffle.
I could go on and on. This was an amazing time and met lots of great people along with several weirdos as well! I’ve uploaded some of the pics here:
http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v652/aikigreg/la%202008/ vegas rocked too, though I was only there for a day. I’m totally exhausted.
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SoCal rally (Read 827 times)
