Things I learned yesterday

1. Do not eat a leek & spaghetti omelet before a century (sure there might be people who'd advise never to eat such a concoction ever again)
2. Do not plan your future when climbing up under the sun to the even more scorching pass
3. Doing a self-supported century us much harder than an organized one, even when the organization is poor.
4. Heat kills. OK, I did not learn that directly, but I had a feeling that it's not too unlikely to just step over the tipping point
5. If you can't choose the weather, take your time, pace yourself carefully.

The course:

Virtual Etape

Cycling.tv has posted an excellent Rider's Guide to the Ultimate Sportive (note: if the link does not work click on "Video on Demand," and look among the free2view selection). And the "ultimate sportive" is of course none less than this year's Etape du Tour!

It's still winter in the Pyrenees and the Cycling TV team previews this year's course talking about gearing, nutrition, allocating one's energies to be able to finish the course. The two main climbs are detailed, as well as the two preliminary ones.

With the Tourmalet climb being the main event of the day and therefore somewhat "accounted for" in everybody's mind, there are two things that emerge from the video. First, the Tourmalet descent will be scarier, and much longer than the recent experience descending Deer Creek (although pavement could hardly be worse, unless completely absent). In the video of course the snow and ice still present on that side of the mountain make things seem probably a little worse than they will be with the summer in full bloom. Second, the final climb to Hautacam will probably be the hardest bit: all happening in the last 15 kilometers with relatively steep terrain and probably very little left in the legs. Clearly that will be the time to go down to the 34x25, but time is also a factor: the organization has posted the course with the elimination times. In other words, "just making it" won't cut it this time, least suffer the indignity of the voiture balai.

How to train for something like this? Short of arriving in loco a couple of months earlier to try out the course, the best that I can imagine doing is to do multiple centuries at a steady pace, interspersed with extended climbing weekends. After working on my "base" for four months, and sweating my way up and down the Santa Monicas in the Mulholland Challenge, it's finally the time for the serious miles.

Entwined

I make a point to stop along my daily bike commute take in the details of the world we live in. Every day there something new, or something old and usual that sparkles in new light. In the good season, there's an old lady sitting on the porch of her trailer. Sometimes she knits, always wrapped up in a heavy winter coats. She's there when I bike by in the morning, she's there when I come back in the afternoon. More than once I have seen vultures praying, sitting on top of a pole spreading their wings to salute the sun.

Sometimes I take pictures, never enough, I never seem to have my camera when something cool happens. I love bicycling as it renew the physical contact with the outside, something that most car drivers have long forgot, anesthetized in their airtight cabs, their brain stunned by bubblegum muzak. How much do they miss of their lives?

Today I was flying down the bike path, wind in my favor, when I saw a cyclist, stopped on the side of the narrow ribbon of asphalt that crosses the once glorious Goleta slough. I glanced in passing to figure out what he was looking at, and soon I was braking and doing a quick about-face. Non two yards from the bike path, two gopher snakes were mating, dancing, the entwined lovers moved slowly in the grass, twisting more and more around each other, their tongues flicking, looking for each other. I had never seen anything like that "live". Beautiful, and surprisingly tender, in an unexpectedly wild way. Soon people started to stop and see what was going on, observing at a distance, talking about their own reptilian encounters. Try doing that on 101.

But the biggest difference is in feeling truly alive, our hunting genes being satisfied by the physical exertion, our natural curiosity by the sheet beauty of every day's discovery.

"I never feel that I am inspired unless my body is also. It too spurns a tame and commonplace life. They are fatally mistaken who think, while they strive with their minds, that they may suffer their bodies to stagnate in luxury or sloth. A man thinks as well through his legs and arms as his brain." -- Henry David Thoreau

Evening ride

I have always loved daylight savings time. As a kid, I remember adults hating to have to change their habits, one miserable hour lost until Fall. They sounded like they had lost their wallet, or something irreplaceable. For me it was freedom, spring, coming out all of a sudden of the endless gloomy northern Italian winter. Finally we were walking back to school with plenty of light left to play. Soon enough school would be over, it would be the time when the carnival hit town. That's when the very taste of air changed to a melange of warm air, poplar pollen and brittle from the nearby carnival. Night would not fall until way past our official bedtime.

I still greatly enjoy extra long days, but I have always considered myself a morning rider. Mornings feel so full of hope: the air is fresh, the body well rested, the mind still to asleep to rebel against the perspective exertion. The day lays ahead, virtually unlimited. As time goes by, it will be warmer, perhaps the sun will burn through the marine layer and, like somebody said there will be light. After work rides are fun and relaxing, but the feeling is quite different. I have already given my best to a thankless job, the sun is seriously thinking about splashing down in the ocean and the air is getting cooler by the minute. One has to think about returning before it gets too dark and dangerous for bikes that shed all those heavy lights or reflectors.

Maybe there's an underlying metaphor to this feeling. Sitting now comfortably in the warmth afternoon of life I might be pedaling down the slope of experience, but I pretty much know what lies ahead. Better pedal a little faster, to get where I want to be there on time, just before dusk.

Recovery week

I considered this past week a recovery time after last saturday's Mulholland Challenge. My efforts were directed simply towards having fun on the bike, low mileage (112) and fun sprints and climbs.

Reminding myself about the fun factor is an essential intermediate stage. I remember last season, feeling exhausted after a horrible century experience, and even hating my bike. Certainly my old bike was a lot easier to hate than my current dream ride. What I tried to do this season is to build up gradually my strength and resistance. I am almost done with my first objective, with over 1500 base miles (almost 2500km). Now the season can begin in earnest.

I have two century events coming up in May, and I will have to add more climbing-specific training. I'm more than a little worried about the long and intense Pyrenees climbs, so I plan to find something equivalent around here, and work on that front. Clearly altitude will be a problem: after sixteen years at sea-level even six thousand feet might feel heavy.

One problem at a time. Meanwhile, I'll be enjoying the following yoga routine:

Myths

I remember a couple of years ago, following the endless Tour scandals, a friend from my younger days dropped an email. He pointed out the most recent scandal, and candidly asked me if I was also doping, given my passion for anything bicycle related. I was amused, but also thought cycling had been really hit hard (and some might say unfairly, compared to other sports) if now the public connected pedaling with doping rather than extreme fun. At the time of course I pointed my friend to the website for my favorite form of doping.

I still think it's better to laugh about it, so here's my favorite (warning: politically incorrect) song from last summer:

EPO TE QUIERO - LAPLAGE
Uploaded by laplagerecords

L'Ivresse des Sommets

Imagine yourself trying to keep your heartbeat in check, yet having to keep your pedaling rhythm up an impossible hill. You are dehydrated, your legs are tired from previous climbing, so the effort sends your cardiac muscle in overdrive, your breath gets shorter, you lose your timing. It’s not the hill the enemy, or at least, that’s a static adversary: it does not move under your wheels, it does not strike you when you are not paying attention. The bike, if it’s a good bike, is a good ally, responding appropriately to your every movement.

It’s 96F, and all you hear is the beat of your heart in your ears, the heat coming up from the asphalt almost intolerable. There are people walking their bikes. One stopped in front of a locked gate to lay down in the shade. You ask them if they are OK, then you focus back on your battle. The fight, you realize it by now, it’s with yourself. It’s the purest form of martial art, the ultimate control. If you give up, you lose. If you ask too much of yourself, you lose even more. You count the money in the bank, every calorie, every ounce of strength, every drop of water you have left in your bottles. You count, or sing a song in your head that soon begins to irritate you. A crow caws its welcome. You are not dead yet, you explain, come pick me up after the next turn. There is always a next turn, you have been climbing since the beginning of the century, the past one. But one of those turns, you know, it’s the magical one, the one that turns defeat into victory, or at least so needed temporary relief.

You need to slow down. You tell the crow, you tell the lady walking her bike who thinks already that you are crazy or hallucinating, a sunstroke victim or a fanatic, or both. You need to slow down to go faster. You don’t need speed, not now, you need constant velocity, and fuel. You slow down, not enough to bring the heartbeat down below the threshold. That’s OK, that’s all you can do, keep it as slow as you can, and keep moving, power through the next turn, it gets just a little steeper, but don’t overdo it.

Then the last turn is there, you see the green of the valley beyond, it’s rolling hills to the next stop, just a quick one to fill your bottles, to put your head under the faucet if you’re lucky and there is one. But there is so much more than fresh water in you now. You were dead , and now you are reborn. You were lost and forlorn, and now you are in love with life. You were almost defeated, but you triumphed. It’s Eros and Thanatos the cycle of life and death just within every determined individual’s grasp.

And soon enough you’ll dart towards the bottom of the valley, hugging the turns, the landscape merging into one green blur.

Things I learned today

Climbin'

1. Don't think the guy in front of you knows what he's doing
   
2. If the guy is actually a girl, she might know, but she's too slow uphill and you have to pass her anyway
   
3. It's not about the legs. It's about the neck, the back. Work on those!
   
4. Potassium pills work! Or at least, they work for me, and results were absolutely amazing. They gave me a couple these and I took up the scariest hill like I just swallowed Super Goof Goobers. That stuff should be illegal. But seriously, I just realized today how a small thing like lack of electrolytes (of perhaps just of the right kind) can make a huge difference.
5. Avoid Planet Ultra events. I'm sorry to say, they are (almost all) nice people, well meaning, but the organization was, at best, amateurish. That does not work well with an extreme challenge, set in remote areas with no cell reception. Running out of water before the major and hottest climb of the day simply cannot happen: even if it did, drive fast to the closest supermarket, buy all the water bottle stock, come back. And maybe hire people and volunteers who can give directions and have some idea of the area.
   
6. Do not ride a time trial bike in a century, especially something like this. Try something less rigid and with more than one riding position available. If you insist on riding such a bike, try at least to restrain yourself from rushing into the arrival area shouting "my crotch, my crotch!" I'm sorry for the poor crotch-damaged guy, but it was just too funny to hear the painful cry and watching everyone present pretending nothing had happened.
   

Packin'

I’m on my way to the first century of the season. This one will also have to count as the one "mountain event" towards my preparation for the Tourmalet, if nothing else because we miss serious mountains around here. More climbing-specific training will follow of course, but this will probably be only mountain event with organization and assistance. I'm aiming relatively low, 100km or 12,000 feet would be an excellent result before bailing out.

More details on Sunday, if I survive of course.

Meanwhile, I’m working on my packing list for a century.

• Cycling gloves (can't ride without these)
• Cycling shoes, socks (several, you never know)
  
• Helmet, headbands
• Clothing: variety of jerseys, bibs
  
• Vest & rain jacket (the forecast says warm & toasty, but I'll be out pedaling at 7AM, when the sun barely woke up)
  
• Arm warmers (easier to pull out that long sleeve anything)
  
• Water Bottles (no camelbacks, in spite of what the organization says, I hate riding with them)
  
• Food: gels, dried fruit, energy bars (they will be handing these out too, but there's really no substitute for food one is used to).
  
• Extra packets of cytomax (again, that’s what I’m used to drink and one does not want to switch the day of the century. I plan to go for water jug only).
• Cycle computer +Heart rate monitor strap (more than any other day, better to keep things in check).
  
• Sunglasses
• Sunscreen
• Safety ID Tag (to ID the corpse, if need be)
  
• Post Event Snack, a few gallons of water, flip flops, some very comfy clothing to wear afterwards
• Extra tubes, allen wrenches for last minute checks/fixes
• Floor pump
  

Undoubtedly, the most important item will come to mind once far enough from home to prevent a double-take. But whatever that is, it'll sure make the list next time!

Hastily added to the list:

• Map to get to departure
• Other documents (hotel reservation, proof of registration in the event)
• Chamois cream
• Lube (these last two items sound quite hilarious together, so I will specify that the lube is for bicycle chain and parts)

And the last minute duh:

• One should remember to load the bike, if any riding at all needs to occur!
  

Riding the Clouds

Look Kéo Carbon

Il giorno fu pieno di lampi;
ma ora verranno le stelle

Saturday I was riding the clouds, going as fast as I could, yet taking the time to look around, trying to be aware of every sound besides my labored breath while climbing the Carpinteria and Santa Barbara foothills. A low hanging marine layer wrapped the coastline in a cold embrace. I just left the bike shop where I had the bike going through it’s first check up. The rear wheel needed minor truing, the slightly defective right brake lever was swapped with a replacement one. And finally, my Look Kéo Carbon pedals were in, making Aida finally complete. Bike perfectly in tune, super light pedals really gave me the feeling of pedaling through air, it was too perfect, too easy, I had to introduce an element of suffering in the equation: I had to make it worth it.

Climbing up Romero Canyon, comfortably seated for once, I kept wondering why. Why do we do this? Middle aged men, challenging our failing bodies, gearing up to defy the inevitable? Or simply living our life to the max now that we have understood that, perhaps, not too soon we hope, there might be an end to the good days?
Are we trying to prove something, are we just trying to forget our dead end careers? Somehow I don’t think it is so simple. A few of us have done this forever, our challenge to ordinary life has been going on as long as we can remember. I believe our bodies know more than we consciously, do, influenced by upbringing, set in our often absurd and wasteful ways. Once we were warriors, hunters and gatherers. We ran, lived in the delicate balance of having enough calories to gather more with all means possible. Striving that balance, I believe, is still the key to well-being. Not everybody understands that, not everybody is able to leave their sheltered zone of comfort to challenge their bodies they way they love to be challenged. The fact of being, perhaps, a minority does not imply being the anomaly, quite the contrary actually.

I can see the lack of challenge it among the self-destructive, among the mall dwellers. Their compulsory habits, their forgetting their bodies destroying them or draping pretty new colored things, like that could reshape what they have long neglected. Some think acquiring as many symbols of material comfort as possible, their eyes sparkling in search of further prefabricated excitement.

So I did feel a little guilty sitting on my new bike, and thus pedaled just a little harder

Blood

After the previous day happy strolling up and down the Santa Barbara foothills, I was not sure if I wanted to head out in the morning fog to join the usual coffee group ride. As it turns out, it might have been a good idea to stay in bed. Or perhaps not, as I might have missed learning something along the way.

There were just four of us at the usual meeting place, the others involved in a group ride out of town just a few did not know about. I already had the 8 miles from home to the rendez-vous point in my legs, and that felt extremely good. The air was damp and mildly cold, at least relatively to what passes as cold at these latitudes. We took off along the usual route, and little by little the group swelled to 15 or so, some known faces, many unknown. But it wasn’t the same as usual, the pace was slower than average, but the stop and go much more frequent than usual. I came to realize that much later, busy as I was pushing on my new pedals and enjoying my new plushy ride. In retrospective, what I think happened is that we were missing the people who usually hold the group together, force the pace up maintaining a constant speed and serve as good role models keeping straight lines in turbulent sprinting situations.

We race up and down Hope Ranch and later on Foothills as any other Sunday, then we get to the infamous sprint zone on Cathedral Oaks. I’m surprised I can easily keep up-- but it’s not just the new bike. And it’s probably a good thing I’m unusually up ahead rather than in the middle of the peloton. I catch the wheel of a veteran, hopeful that he’ll provide good guidance.

How wrong I was.

I’m not able to recount what happened, a fact that I find mildly scary in itself. Somebody crossed somebody else’s path, they braked, somehow I move out of the way. Somebody else did not brake or find an escape route fast enough. Wheels touched, then the terrifying noise of bikes and bodies hitting the asphalt at 30 mph, rolling and crashing again. There was no time to scream.

Then somebody calls the crash, we’re stopping, turning around watchful for cars, the wide emergency lane we ride in this area is a real blessing. I drop my bike in the soft grass off the road. Three riders down, laying across the pavement. One landed on his face, there’s blood all over the road. They are in shock, Lycra torn and road rash showing through. One rider, Joe, we were talking just a few minutes before is down badly, banged up and bloody. Cars are stopping, a few people come out. Before riders start chatting on the cell phones with the emergency responders, there is silence on the road, just for a few instants. It’s 10 am, the sun is behind the fallen riders, and it all looks so tragically beautiful and unfair.

A very Euro experience 2: Revenge of the Airlines

There are indeed differences between the former new and the old old world.

I called Delta a few weeks ago in order to check on carrying my bike overseas and back. Yes sir, no problem sir. No one really knows anything, but at least in theory everything is possible.

The first leg of the trip, however, is with partner Air France. I check with them as well, since from previous investigations, their policies were quite different, and transportation possibly more expensive. I had been told "just call back when you have a ticket," and, as the exemplary citizen that I am I did just that. I called back. Everybody is extremely nice on the phone. But no one really knows anything, and nothing is possible, without asking first authorization from Paris. You would think I wanted to carry a car, a steamboat or a concert piano.

But on this bicycle, AirFrance central will need to be consulted. I can't avoid imagining my incredible request trickling up to PDG Jean-Cyril Spinetta, who in consultation with First Madame Carla Bruni will decide on the fate of my unusual claim.
"Un velo??? C'est rouge???"
Let's hope they don't think it's a socialist bike.

Stay tuned.