Cabin Fever

 I've been stuck inside the last 2 days other than shoveling the driveway some. I shoveled for about an hour and a half yesterday. Only got about 30% done.  Luckily, this week was scheduled as a recovery week, so it worked out well with the snow storm. The only problem is, I started feeling like I was getting sick on Monday. Sure enough, I woke up last night feeling a cold coming on.

 I've been trying to take it easy today, but I'm getting restless just sitting around. I decided to take a quick spin on the CX bike around the neighborhood.

Checking out the roads around my house. I'm also testing out the ability to post on here using my phone.

The roads aren't too bad, but definitely some big drifts. Your best bet is to stay in the tire track ruts. I had to resist the urge to go mountain bike riding at Bluff Creek with some friends. Sounds like fun, but I'm trying hard not to get really sick.

Surviving winter

Riding a bike in the winter is a different kind of fun, that's for sure. It's funny how differently people who ride bikes deal with the short daylight hours and sub-freezing to moderately cold weather. Some have the 40 degree rule where anything below 40 degrees is a no go. Some folks prefer the trainer, and stick to that and the gym throughout winter. I'm sure spending countless hours on the trainer builds some kind of mental toughness, as it seems like torture to me, but it's not going to build the all around toughness and "hardening up" that riding year round in all types of weather will give you.

Lake Hefner, one of the many snow storms of 2010, and my cyclocross bike...good times!

The first step to riding in cold weather is committing to it. I realize it's getting late in the winter season, but committing to riding in the fall is probably a better idea than say starting January 1st, as your body adjusts to the weather as it gets colder. Having the right equipment is important and can make a big difference. I'm not going to list every piece of clothing you'll need as there are tons of other sources for info on bike clothing. The nice thing with winter clothing is once you make the initial investment, the clothing lasts for several years.

The biggest mistake I see in clothing choices is wearing too much. In general, if you're comfortable when you first start your ride, you've got too much on. It takes some practice to get the right combination of clothing. The first 10 or 15 minutes should be chilly, but once you warm up, riding in cold weather feels great! I typically decide how much to wear by temperature and how hard I'm planning on riding. In general, starting around 65 degrees, I'll add knee warmers, a light base jersey, and maybe arm warmers and a vest if its cooler. From there, each 10 degrees lower, I'll add an additional layer. Below 50, it's good to cover your feet, ears, and hands.

My favorite cold weather cap with an iced up visor. A beard is nice also.....

Below 30 degrees, you'll want heavier gloves, thick neopreen booties, and a good windstopper hat with good ear coverage. Probably your neck too at this point. If you're riding slow, add more clothes. If you're riding fast or racing, you'll want to use less. Actually, most races you want to keep it as minimal as possible. If it's cold and wet, there's tons of embrocation to put on the legs that works well.

I like ski gloves for temps below 35ish. They're kind of bulky, but very effective. Anything warmer and your hands get too sweaty.



A mountain bike or a cyclocross bike works well in the harshest winter conditions. There are studded snow tires available, but I've made my own by threading sheet metal screws from the inside out of a wide tire, then cut the bead of a slightly narrower tire of the same diameter, putting it in Mr. tuffy style, then a tube, and you've got a bad ass ice tire.

Home made ice tire studs...This set up actually needs more. Cut the ends of the screw off so about 1/4" sticks out.

Fenders work well for commuting, but can clog with ice if the temps get too low.

I understand you can't ride outside exclusively during the winter, but mixing it up from doing nothing or just riding the trainer or rollers can make a big difference in you bike handling skills and general cycling enjoyment.

What I learned racing in 2010

2010 was a fun year. As a team, it was our first year to compete together, and as always, I learned a few new things here and there. I've been trying to write down all year what I thought was something worthwhile, and here is my list:

1- Racing a category 1-2 road race or crit is cut throat. It reminds me of racing A-pro in BMX. Even guys with a ton of fitness have to learn a lot in order to compete. The thing is, everybody is fast, but it's like jumping in to play chess with a bunch of master chess players. If you can survive a race, and observe how the best guys do it, you learn a lot every time. It's a fine line between being in the mix and getting spit off the back.

2- If you're used to riding/racing with alloy clincher wheels, running carbon Zipp tubulars with Vittoria tubular tires is like cheating. Being lighter and more aero is one thing. The best thing is how hard you can corner with them. There's a couple demo sets at the shop I work at( Schlegel bikes) that I've been fortunate to borrow at several races last year.

3- This is something that I should have already known, but I guess I had to find out the hard way. An 11-25 or 26 cog set is a good gear for hilly road races. An 11-26 however, is not a good gear ratio for a fast, flat pro 1-2 crit in Texas. You get gapped to easy coming out of corners and having to change your cadence from too big of a jump. An 11-21 or 11-23 is a much better choice.

4- Save energy to "power through" slow sections during cyclocross races. This can be sand, mud, or a short steep hill. This also somewhat applies to road racing. You can put a huge amount of space on someone in a short amount of time if you do it right.

5-Bunny hopping is an essential skill in cyclocross. It's also good for avoiding crashes if you have to jump up on a curb.

6- Time management is very important for training time if you have a full time job and a family. Thats good in that my wife and I had our 2nd baby last November. I haven't had much spare time to keep this blog updated, but I got a new phone that will allow me to do post race reports on the way home from races as well as maybe some more how to stuff at the shop.

The 2011 race season is right around the corner. We've added a couple more riders to our team and have got several rides in together. Should be a fun year.

OC Criss Cross and Ruts and Guts CX

Since the first week in September, there's been a lot of opportunities to participate in several cyclocross events. The Wednesday night practices have gotten huge with over 40 riders showing up the last few times. The race season officially started on October 2nd with a race that was promoted by the race team I'm on, Team Undiscovered. The race was at the Oklahoma Christian University campus on a field where the cross country team trains. A few sections were cleared out with a brush hog making them a little bumpy. There were a few people who complained that the course was too rough, but with the right air pressure in the tires, I thought it was a fine course.


I decided to do the masters 40+ race and the cat 123 race also. Every time I've tried to do 2 races back to back, it generally doesn't work out well, at least for cyclocross anyway.



The masters race was first. There was a decent turnout, maybe 12 or 13 riders. My plan was to ride conservatively till 20 minutes to go, then go hard to the end. I figured that would be the best way to have something saved up for the A race and hopefully get a good finish in the masters race.

The plan was going good for about 1/3 of the first lap. I thought the tempo of the race felt slow, so I attacked and opened a little gap. A couple of guys chased me the whole race, and by the end I was pretty smoked.

I managed to get the win, but I didn't have much left for the 123 race.

An even bigger field in the 123 race. I wouldn't have done the 123 "A" race if I had known how blown I would be after the masters race, but I was already registered, so I just raced it to train. The competition in the A races is at an all time high. The course was pretty short and Bryan Fawley was going super fast. He won the race by almost a lap and put 3 or 4 laps on me by the time it was over.


Biff Stephens took this photo. I stayed in the whole race and I'm not sure how I finished...probably 15th or 17th or somewhere in there. I don't know if it was the stress of doing both races, or working Sunday at the shop and being around a lot of people at the Schlegelfest thing, but Monday I started getting sick and it pretty much went downhill all week.

I had to miss the showdown at sundown race in Tulsa the following weekend, but the Wednesday before the ruts and guts race, I did the practice race and felt good enough to race on Friday.

The Friday night ruts and guts race in Broken Arrow was pretty awesome! Due to a huge cash payout, the turnout was very good. It was the biggest CX race I've done to date. The course was layed out really cool, but the only problem for me was the dust. There wasn't much wind and driving to the course, I knew I was getting close by the gigantic dust cloud floating off the highway.

I'm in the middle of building some new CX tubular wheels. Andy wasn't racing, so he let me borrow his zipp 404 tubulars w/ vittoria tires. Very nice. I did the masters race again. I think there were around 25 riders in our field. The race was going good. Another rider and myself were trading pulls in 3rd-4th, we were gaining on 2nd, when I slid out in a corner and crashed pretty good. It was 3 laps to go at that point and I dropped back to 7th I think. I made it back to 5th and almost 4th but not quite.


First time I was on a podium. I wanted to do better, but it was still a really fun race. My teamate Judson Copeland took these 3 photos. The double crossed races are this coming weekend, but I popped my thumb pretty good when I crashed. Its ok to ride my road bike, but its hard to grip the bars on bumps.

Wednesday night cyclocross action!

Coatney took a few pictures from the last CX practice. The rider turnout has been pretty good and the practice courses have been really good also.

We had to climb up the big banks 2 times per lap. It got pretty hard towards the end.

J-dog hitting the 1st corner. Off in the distance is the other bank we climbed.

The first official race this season will be on Oct.2nd. Lots of races every weekend after that!

Har-Ber Meadows criterium and the Streak

The team (Jeremy, Parks, Judson, and Brad) and I got together for a late season criterium in Arkansas this past Saturday. I wasn't really sure how things would go, at least for me anyway, because I haven't raced sine July. I've been trying to ramp up the training intensity to simulate cyclocross conditions, so worse case, I figured the race would be a good hard training effort.


Jeremy, Parks and I decided to do the 35+ masters race and the P123 race also. The 123 race was being hyped up in the flyer as having a large "pass the hat" cash prime lap. We were pushing it pretty close time wise to make it in time for the 35+ race, but we made it with about 15 minutes to warm up. We knew the day was going to be fun when we were pulling up to the course and we see Brad Huff riding around.

The 35+ race went pretty well. Jeremy, Parks and I were the only guys on the team in the race, and it looked early on like we could possibly get a 1-2-3 finish. Parks and Jeremy got up the road and had a pretty good gap on the field, but Brian rolled his tubular tire in the last corner and crashed pretty good. I got in a 6 man break a little later after a prime lap and it stuck to the end.

We had about 30 seconds on the field going into the last lap. I tried to stick with the guy I thought was the best sprinter. As we approached the last corner, a guy attacked on the opposite side of the road and got a little gap on me and the guy I was watching. I passed the guy I had been watching, but I needed about 20 more yards to catch the guy that took off early. The 35+ and the 45+ were scored separately, so I ended up with the win in the 35+ as the guy that beat me was in the 45+ race.

We had about 4 hours to burn before the 123 race, but the race venue was a nice park setting with plenty of places to eat nearby. As we were getting staged for the 123 race, the promoters said the big cash prime would be at the 40 minute point. I think the prime ended up being $430.00 or something. Neither race seemed super hard. Brad Huff attacked the field at around 30 minutes in and stayed off the rest of the race.

The end of the race came down to a field sprint for 2nd place. I think the biggest weakness our team has right now is finishing strong in a big field sprint. We've discussed it but never really done any practice drills or had a solid plan thought out before the race even starts when it comes down to the last part of the race. I was sitting pretty good in the top five with 3 laps to go, but I made a bad decision and chased down an attack and got winded. I started to work my way back up with 1 lap to go, but the best I could move up was 16th. Brian finished the highest with the last money spot in 12th.

I don't see any reason why we couldn't have had 3 or 4 of us in the money as all the guys were riding well all race. I think the rest of the guys are going to do 1 or 2 more road races, but I'm pretty much done for the road season.

The OBS Streak was the following Sunday and I felt pretty good after Saturday, so I got up early again and made it by the 7:30 start time by about 5 minutes. Pretty fun ride with lots of people. Rode with my brother for a bit in the beginning. Gil and Helen were there on their tandem, so I knew they would be throwing down some pain around the halfway point. Sure enough, they punched it, but I was ready and jumped on their wheel with Steve Colton. We were ripping along at 40+ MPH for at least 2 or 3 miles. I could see a small group of riders chasing, and they eventually bridged up to us when we got caught at a busy intersection.

The break a way group grew to the tandem, myself and 7 other riders: 3 OKC Velo guys, my buddy Andy Chasteen, my teamate Little Ryan, and the infamous Jason Waddel. We just got into a solid rotation the rest of the way. We got rained on pretty good for a few miles towards the end, but nothing like it rained on my way driving home.

Pretty good end to a recovery week. Monday the 13th will not be a rest day. I'm starting a peak period cyclocross month before the real racing starts in early October. I'm pretty stoked for the CX practice race on Wednesday.

If I could only have 1 bicycle.....

It would be my cyclocross bike.

Preparation has begun for the upcoming cyclocross season, and I was thinking about this a few weeks ago after I pulled my Redline out of summer hibernation. So far I've commuted to work, commuted to and participated in a practice race, and ridden a few laps at the mountain bike trails. You could road race it if you had to. It also works well for riding in the snow. I guess my point is, the cyclocross bike is very versatile.

Anyhow, I guess cross' season will officially start the first or second weekend in October. I've got a 12 week CX training plan that I'm 7 weeks into. This coming week will be a recovery week with 1 practice race, maybe a criterium in Arkansas, and maybe the Streak. Doesn't seem like much of a recovery week. The next 4 weeks after that will be brutal! Lots of high intensity intervalls.

My CX season this year will probably be all wrapped up by mid November as my wife and I will have our hands full with a new baby!