I sold my old Peugeot on Craigslist last week…

… and replaced it with this lovely Surly Cross Check this week.

I rode the new bike to work today. One gear is plenty for my flat, 32-mile round trip. Besides, the bike’s heavy enough without any shifters and derailleurs. I’m contemplating adding a rack and panniers; it would be nice to make this a commuting and errand-running mule. Plus, a nerdy rack is probably an excellent theft-deterrent.

Briefly – I took third at the Alpe B’lhuez TT yesterday. Jeff Otto set a new course record, and I was about 20 seconds faster than I was in 2006. Pretty satisfying. I went out way too hard again, though.

Here’s a picture of the finishing climb. It’s 0.6 miles long and much steeper than it looks.

And here’s a snapshot of me taking a snapshot of the results.

Today, Kelley and I rode down to the lakefront via the Hank Aaron trail. We stopped at Alterra for a warmup beverage, then headed back home. It was a nice way to spend a Sunday afternoon, albeit a bit chilly near the lake.

On the way back, we stopped to watch some car races taking place at Miller Park.

What a beautiful weekend for bike riding. On Saturday, I did a nice solo ride up the lakeshore to Cedarburg, where I delivered a cassette to a teammate. Somehow, I underestimated the round-trip mileage and ended up with a 70-miler. It was nice, though. Just a bit more than budgeted.

Sunday was my first TT of the year. It was held at the Bong Recreation Area – the same course as the state championships, which will be held in two weeks. I set a course record of 51:35 at last year’s title race, but that was in late July, with a full Superweek of fitness in my legs. My goal yesterday was to hold a power output equal to about 90% of what I did last year. As it turned out, that’s exactly what I did. The result was a time of 55:04 – pretty good considering the ~15mph wind that was blowing. When I left, my time was the second fastest by four seconds.

I was a bit bummed to have missed the victory by such a slender margin, and to have been three and a half minutes slower than my previous time. However, with a couple corrections, I’m confident that I can improve significantly for the state championship. In particular, I will not:

• Do a hard 70 miles on the preceding day
• Warm up for only 25 minutes
• Wear a standard, non-aero helmet
• Start out too hard

My next race will be another time trial – the Alpe B’luez TT – which concludes with a long climb up to the Blue Mounds State Park. I’ll focus this week on getting two high-quality rides on the TT bike and arriving as fresh and well-prepared as possible for Saturday’s race.

Here’s a parting shot from the drive down to the race, taken through my dirty car window.

I finally got my new Felt DA put together this week, and took it for a shake-down ride yesterday. Dang, is it nice. Even with my standard road wheels (not the deep-section race wheels), it felt super-fast. An even greater surprise was the fact that despite using nothing but my eyeball (both eyeballs, actually) I had dialed the position to within a few tweaks of perfection.

Dig the speed-glow!

My legs must have been inspired, because the numbers on the PowerTap display were looking really good. I’m not yet at the level I attained at last July’s state championship, but I’m not far off, either. With the national championships six weeks away, I’m feeling pretty encouraged.

Oh, and since I hadn’t previously mentioned it here, let me do so now. My main goal this season is the time trial at Masters Nationals (June 30). I’m eschewing most of the Wisconsin Cup calendar to focus on TTs, the first of which I’ll do this weekend. It’ll be held on the same course as the state championships, which take place the following week. It’ll be nice to get a good gauge of my current fitness and make any necessary adjustments before the medal round.

Although I doubt they’ll ever read this, I need to thank Bryan at Felt and Jordan at Saris for the good-guy deals.

Todd Miller is a nice guy who used to rule the Milwaukee road racing scene. He’s been off the radar for a couple seasons, but it appears he’s doing rider interviews and working on his tan at the Giro d’Italia.

Also, if you ever wondered what Oscar Sevilla would look like with Erik Zabel’s haircut, well wonder no longer.

This has got to stop. Two races and two crashes. Yes folks, this past Saturday I pinned on a number for just the second time this year, and once again it got torn off in a crash. This time, the cause was pilot error. In a nutshell, I had just attacked and gotten about a five-second gap on the field. I reached down to pull out my water bottle, and in doing so, stuck my left knee out slightly to make room to draw the bottle out of the cage and towards my mouth. Nothing unusual or dangerous about that, right? Unfortunately, I’d just cleaned and lubed the contact surfaces of my pedals, so the release tension had effectively been lessened. As a result, my foot suddenly came unclipped, and before I knew it, I was tumbling down the road in spectacular fashion as it was later recounted to me.

Thankfully, and to my amazement, my bike made it through without a scratch. My body fared worse. I ended up with minor abrasions on both shoulders and on my back. Worst hurt was my right knee, which gave up a couple acres of skin. After surveying the damage, I rolled back to the start/finish line, presented my bloody self to the officials, and got back in the race. I tried a couple more attacks, but to no effect, so I ended the race safely in the bunch. No way was I going to try my luck in the sprint. After the race, I realized that I’d cracked my helmet, but as best I can tell, I’m no more dumber that I wuz b4.

I’m a bit stiff today, but it’s Bike to Work Week, so I managed to ride in this morning. My next race is a time trial, so there’s a good chance I’ll break end my crashing streak. Let’s hope, anyway.

Okay, I’ve been back for a few days, but here are some parting shots from camp.

Me, with Devil’s Courthouse in the background, and Scott’s finger in the extreme foreground:
Gravel, Tige:

Mark didn’t heed my warning about the gravel:

Dirtying up the MTBs at Pisgah:

Come on, ride it, Mark!

A Cove in a cove:

And finally, the traditional weird closeups: