Titanium Addiction

Wednesday, December 26, 2007

What a Day!

I love skiing on Christmas day. I am not Christian, so it is just another day for me. I am happy for everyone that gets to celebrate it, sad for those that have to work on what is a holiday for others, even more sad for those that have to work and the day means something more than a day off. I am generally happy for me on this day. The normal routine is going to a movie and having Chinese food - the only things generally open.

This year we are in Colorado and got to enjoy 8-10 inches of very dry powder on Christmas day. WOOOHOOO!!! It was great! Virtually no lift lines and lots of fresh snow to be found. Planning an early assault on the mountain today before everyone else gets there rear ends out. Hoping to convince someone to go with me, but if I have to go it alone, so be it.

I could go on about the skiing, but it might bore you, in case you weren't already bored.

Monday, December 24, 2007

I still don't understand....

Yesterday was travel day for the family. A seemingly simple trip from Toledo to Aspen involving a car ride, two planes, and a shuttle bus. Not exactly a logistical nightmare by modern standards.

Everything started off just fine, even to the point of only one of my teenage daughters being bitchy at 6 in the morning ( a small miracle). I dropped off everyone at the curb with our mound of gear and proceeded to the parking garage - Another miracle - I found a spot in the garage without having to resort to parking outside! The check in went smoothly and I managed to make it through security just after the rest of the family - sometimes can be as much as a half hour difference.

Our flight to Minneapolis was delayed by 20 minutes waiting for someone to make their connection. Funny, they have never waited for me. I wonder what it takes to be on that list? We took off and it was a relatively smooth flight. Upon arrival, we had about 20 minutes to cross the MSP airport to our next plane. I was sent ahead for food and we all managed to make it. Now the fun begins.

Everybody has boarded the plane, but the door does not get closed. The pilot comes on the PA and announces that they have the wrong database in the control software for landing in Vail!!!! Hello - isn't there a checklist somewhere that should tell them this ahead of time. We are going to be delayed a half hour. No problem, we are not trying to catch another plane. Apparently loading the database is not quite as simple as putting some new software in your Mac. 3 hours later we are ready to go. During the 3 hours, they were kind enough to let us off the plane to search for some high quality terminal food. Funny thing was, they wouldn't tell us how long we could be away from the plane, they might leave at any moment - nice... While we were sitting there, I had the view of the luggage conveyor coming on our plane. Every now and then someone would come by and throw a suitcase or skis onto the conveyor - so they piled up. Keep in mind it was like 10 degrees, windy, and snowing at the time. At one point, a suitcase fell off one of the little trucks and lay on the tarmac about 75 feet from our plane for about 45 minutes. At least 10 luggage trucks drove right past it without stopping. So much for that increased terror threat and not leaving your bags unattended.

We finally took off and made it to Vail where we were to catch a shuttle to Aspen. That all went very smoothly, including hearing the horror story of a college kid coming in from Madison, it took him 36 hours. Made our trip look pretty simple.

A week of telemark skiing here I come!!!

Happy Holidays everyone!!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

Day 2 of Nats

This was the big day for me. The race for the national championship. I had absolutely no hopes of winning, as the announcer said later in the day - this was the "Steve Tilford Invitational". With Steve in the front row and me in about the 10th row, time to just get some experience and have some fun. By the time we raced, 3pm, the course was pretty similar to the day before, lots of mud and grass. They had slightly altered one off camber section to give more options on how to attack it, but other than that, same routing.

From the start, it was going to be fun. Hauling up the hill to the first turn, the anticipation was high for the carnage to begin. Most everyone made it through the first turn onto the grass, not so for all the classes. The crashes began shortly thereafter and Tilly just rode away from the mere mortals in the crowd. I was doing a good job of picking people off and avoiding getting tangled in crashes for quite a while. Then I had one of my own. Not surprising given the slippery conditions, but it caused me to get tentative in my head. I proceeded to give back a few spots over the next couple of laps. I then screwed my head back on and started racing on the last lap. I managed to get a few of the places back and had some fun again. I ended up 34th. I am pretty confident I can do better, just a mental problem that can be corrected. Will I ever beat Steve Tilford, no.

Anne G. nailed 3rd place in her race, Anne S. nailed 6th in hers. A good day MI sceners in KC!!



Thursday, December 13, 2007

Somewhere In There....

Somewhere in this picture is a front derailleur:



Here is the rear derailleur:



The complete picture:



So the question is how did I make this mess. Wellllll, it was a beautiful day in Kansas City today. The sun was shining, and they just had a few days of freezing rain. I raced the last race of the day. The earlier races apparently were pretty icy and snowy. The temperature warmed up to the mid 30's and things began to melt. My start position was around 60 out of around 120. I have never been in a close quarters race with so many people before. There have been more at some of the longer races, but it is very different when you know you are going to be on a 1.9 mile circuit with so many people. The start was crazy, but manageable, nobody did anything stupid. The turn off the pavement was 90 degrees through a dip and up a rise, great potential for trouble so I purposefully stayed to the outside of the turn and all was good. I went down in an off camber turn on the first lap, recovered quickly and was back in business. It was to be a five lap race. The key was apply power when prudent and be smart the rest of the time. By the time it was over, I finished 9th.

I am pretty happy with the results, could have been a bit better without the fall, maybe 6 or 7, but not much better than that. It was a fun time, although the usual cyclocross pain was involved. Tomorrow is the big race!!

Thursday, December 06, 2007

The Unveiling

Here it is:
Force Group
Bontrager stem, bar and wheels
Eriksen seatpost (what did you think)
Selle Italia SLR saddle
Avid Jagwire cables
TRP Euro X brakes









Things that might change: saddle going to white, losing the jagwire 'covers', and changing from Bruce Gordon cable splitters to DaVinci. Constructive criticism is always appreciated.

I know it's not titanium, but it sure is nice looking in my opinion. I am hoping to ride it a few times before I take it to nats as my backup bike.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

2nd Trip to Columbus

I made one of the few good decisions of my racing career this weekend. I decided to go to Columbus for a race rather than Waterford for the MI state champs. I think it is going to be a mess tomorrow! Good luck to all taking on the elements - i will be thinking about you while I enjoy Spamalot at the local theater.

The race today was in Upper Arlington at some park - I think it was called Lane Park. It was a tight little course with a lot of off camber turns, a barrier/hill run up, another set of barriers, and a couple of pavement sections. It was pretty fun actually, much better than last weekend in Granville. I raced the A race, and put myself at the back for the start. Since I don't know any of the players, no need to get in anybodies way too early. There were about 15 in the field. It became apparent within the first 1/2 lap that a guy in an Abercrombie & Fitch kit was going to win. He ran away with it. I had a good ride for the most part, with only a couple of small bobbles. I used a couple of guys to make my life easier for a few laps and then passed them. I rode with a couple of guys for probably 5 laps (out of 10 total). I attacked them coming into the bell lap on the start/finish straight and popped one guy on the barier/runup. The other guy was hanging tough until another little up hill where he bobbled and I gapped him off. He then fell in another turn and I rode away for what I think was 5th place. I had wanted to beat the guy that was 4th, but could not quite close down the gap. It was a beautiful sunny and cool day, tomorrow looks like a different story.

Time to start the final count down to nats!