My favorite shop tools

A question I seem to get asked a lot at work is: "What's your favorite tool?"
Honestly, that's a tough question. I love tools. I like working with all my tools, and I really like getting new tools. If I had to narrow it down though, I guess this could be my top 6:

Phil Wood spoke machine

 The Phil Wood machine is probably my favorite tool in the shop. It cuts and threads a spoke to any size in 1 rotation of the crank. A pretty expensive tool, but saves a ton of time and money in not having to order special length spokes or stock a bunch of different sizes.

Enduro BB30 bearing press/remover

 The first few times I messed with BB30 systems I didn't really like them. I thought the ease if installation and general maintenance wasn't worth the weight savings or performance benefits over a standard external bearing system. That is until I used the Enduro BB30 tool. It makes bearing installation and removal super easy and smooth.

Park modified 5mm T-handle hex

 Nothing fancy here, but by far the tool I use the most every day. I bet you could dis-assemble a modern day bike about 75% with this tool alone. I've modified this one by cutting the ball end off the long end and cutting the plastic back about 1/4" on the short end to allow it to get into Shimano rear derailleurs, recessed front brake nuts, ETC.

Shaved down short end

 The modified Park 5 mill in action on a Shimano derailleur. I wish Park would make a version like this.

Grease gun

I've been using this thing forever. It's at least 15 years old and I've used it at 3 different shops I've worked at. I don't use it as much anymore because most bearings are the sealed type and usually get replaced as opposed to being overhauled. It still comes in handy for putting grease in tight spots so you don't have to get your hands greasy and speedplay pedals. Maybe I should fill it with that carbon paste stuff since that's what gets used the most nowadays.

Park 1" wrench with friends

Probably the second most used tool I use daily. I use it all the time for pulling/installing cassettes and it has great leverage for removing tight bottom brackets.

Park truing stand with finished custom wheel

It seems like in a lot of bike shops, wheel building has become a lost art. With so many pre-built wheel sets available today, not a lot of shops still do custom wheel builds. I'm fortunate to work in a shop that builds quite a few. That's good because I really enjoy the entire process. The good old standard park truing stand is another tool I love to use.

Bottecchia project part 1

I've been looking for a cheep frame to build up into fixed gear bike to get some miles on this winter. I sold my last fixed gear bike a couple of years ago, and kind of wanted to build a new one for a while now.
Anyway, I've been looking at frames on Ebay and Craigslist and such, and I guess the whole fixie fashion fad is still going strong because old steel bike frames are pretty pricey these days.

I have an old late 60's model Bottecchia frame thats been hanging in my garage for years. It was a customers from a bike shop I used to work at. He brought it in to be repaired but the bike had a pretty good front end inpact as the frame was cracked and the forks were bent in. After we informed him of the damage, he said to just throw the bike away. I thought the bike was too cool, so I saved it from the dumpster and it's been hanging around ever since. The frame is way too big for me, so I always had an idea that I could somehow cut the broken part off and reuse the main frame.

 This is the frameset. Nothing too fancy. I think this frame is a mid-level quality bike at best, but it's still a cool old frame.

 Front end damage. The frame is designed around 27" wheels, and I'm going to use 700c wheels, so I'll have to re-engineer the BB height a little.

 New chrome moly head tube (for 1 1/8 steerer fork) and dropouts. So far this is the only stuff I've had to buy.

 The frame cut down. The chain and seat stays need some more trimming to match the dropouts, and the top and down tubes need to be notched to fit the head tube.

I cut out about 35mm to shorten the frame to a 56cm seat tube length. I'll get the frame welded up in part 2.

Record miles and record heat July

So the big miles goal for July went well. The goal was 1300 miles and I ended up with a hair over. So in addition to the highest mileage personally in one month, this summer gave us the hottest ever recorded month in Oklahoma City history!

HOT STUFF

The goal for August is to take advantage of this block of miles and try to raise my FTP to an all time high (or at least as high as possible) and start preparing for the upcoming cyclocross season!

Hopefully the weather will cool down.

Firehill practice crit videos and big miles July progress

If you haven't seen these videos yet, and have the time, here they are. They were filmed by my team mate Rob with a camera mounted on his bars. Each segment is about 15 minutes long. There's some pretty crazy looking clouds that were around, but we never got rained on.

This is the start. Just a lot of attacking. Evan runs over Biff on the left side aroung the 11:40 point.

Second part. Rob attacked and got away with Evan (DNA). I bridged up later with Andy (DNA) and Dave (OKC Velo).

The end didn't go quite like I wanted. I wasn't in a good position to jump when Evan took off at the end. I wasn't sure how the race was going to go because I hadn't done any high intensity for some time prior to the race, but I was good to be able to stay in and race.

The big miles July goal is going well. So far I've got 1100 miles in, and still have a week left.

My 2011 training plan progress and what I'm trying differently this year

I actually started this post a few months ago, and I think the 2011 plan has changed at least twice since then. Anyway, here's the rundown of what I've done and what I'm looking to do the rest of the year.

Since I wasn't planning on doing the Joe Martin stage race this year, I decided to try to cut back on the overall weekly time early in the season. I've been using the Training Peaks WKO software since 2008 and had a pretty good idea of what amount of training stress is required to ride say for example 18 hours or 300 miles in a week.
A lot of folks have been doing more of a "less volume - higher intensity" training model with good results, so I thought I would give it a try this season.
Another thing I wanted to try was more on the bike specific exercises and less crosstraining, lifting weights, etc. One thing I experimented with, and I'm definatley going to do again this winter, is riding an overgeared single speed mountain bike. The Bluff Creek trail is only about 4 miles from my house. Single track riding is way more fun than lifting weights.

So after getting through the main part of the road season, in a nutshell the results were good and not so good. I felt like I went really well Feburary through April and just so-so through June. My race results were ok, actually my best racing with the cat 2's, but my power numbers never really matched what they were the last 2 years. I think the more consistant results are due to just gaining race experience and getting better at using what I have in a more efficient manner.  In looking back at all the data I've accumulated, the one common denominator for the best fitness, for me anyway, is lots of miles.
 
I took a couple of weeks off after the Tulsa Tough, and decided it was time to make a serious deposit to the mileage bank in July. My co-worker/team mate/commuter buddy Brandon is doing the Leadville 100 in August, so we're both going for record miles in July. The goal is at least 1300 miles. So far it's going well. We're both ahead of scheadule. I've got almost 900 miles in so far, and still have 12 days left.
 
The last Wed night crit was last week. Pretty decent turnout. The weather cooled off a little that evening which was nice. I didn't think I would do very well because I haven't done any high intensity riding in a month and my legs were pretty tired from the big miles, but it went ok. I got 2nd. Maybe could have won if I would have been smarter on the last lap.
My team mate Rob Bell had a camera mounted on his bars and has the entire race on video. It's 45 minutes long broken up into 3 parts. I'll try to get a link up here in the next couple days.

The goal for August is to try and raise my FTP to as high as possible, and then start fine tuning for the cyclocross season in September. There's a few late season road races mixed in around the same time, hopefully I'll be going pretty good by then.

Fast Times at Tulsa Tough 2011

 We left Oklahoma City bound for Tulsa around 3:30 Friday afternoon. Before I get too far ahead of myself, let me back pedal to Wednesday. A couple of weeks before the Tulsa Tough, I heard that my buddy Dominik Roels was going to be in town to do the Wednesday night after work crit and then the Tulsa Tough.
Dominik was a foreign exchange student here in OKC for a couple of years around 6 or 7 years ago. He went on to race 3 years on the Milram Protour squad before taking a hiatus this season to basically travel the world.
Anyhow, the rumor was correct as he was at our local practice crit on Wednesday night. I guess a lot of guys felt the practice crit was too close to the Tulsa Tough, because the turnout was pretty low compared to the past 2 races. I think there were only 11 or 12 riders in the A group, 6 of which were Team Undiscovered, so we felt like if we couldn't control the race and get the top 3 spots, something was wrong.
After about 20 minutes into the 45 minute race, it was down to 4 riders - 2 of my team mates Rob and Brandon, Dominik, and myself. Dominik isn't in pro level shape right now, but the dude just kept coming back after our non-stop attacks. I think somewhere around 5 laps to go, Rob got away, followed shortly after by Brandon. I thought Dominik was pretty much done and attacked him with 2 laps to go and opened up about a 5 second gap. I tried to bridge to Rob and Brandon, but couldn't quite get there before the terminator came back again surging past me and almost catching Rob and Brandon. In the end, we got 1st, 2nd, and 4th.

Hanging out after the race was over, Dominik was looking for a ride to the Tulsa Tough. I was going up with Rob, and it was kind of an experiment to see if we could get 3 people, 3 bikes, spare wheels and all our gear  inside Rob's Wagon .

1 full vehicle -  Double click any photo to enlarge

It was a tight squeeze, but we did it. No external racks required. It was a fun trip to Tulsa as Rob and I asked a ton of questions about all things bike racing and discussed all kinds of things like what it's like to do a grand tour, how many pro's really dope, preferred bike equipment and so on.
Rob and I had also been talking about last years race and how when we watched the race videos, you barely got a glimpse of us. We didn't seem to be active whatsoever and we were looking to change that. We got to the Blue Dome venue in time to register and get a couple laps in before the cat 3's started. Dominik got registered without any problems. He would be racing the cat 1-2 races with Rob and I all weekend.

We were fortunate again this year to stay with Brian and Carol's friend Ann. Ann lives just a couple of blocks away from the riverside course, so it was only a 2 or 3 mile ride at most to any of the race sites.

So Friday night, the pro women were finishing up and it was finally time for us to race. There's kind of a race before the race to get to the start line in a good position. I secured a decent starting spot on the second row, and within a few minutes, we were racing.  I stayed in a good position around the top 15 or so for the first six corners. I got a good momentum run going down the long downhill backstretch, and found myself in 1st coming out of the last corner!



2nd lap glory on Friday night - Photo by Biff Stephens

 Luckily my buddy Biff got some really cool shots. The effort didn't seem too hard, so I just stayed on the front for a couple of laps.


Still on the front - Friday night - Photo by Biff Stephens

 If you notice the sky in the pictures, the weird look is not a photo effect. Before we started racing, it kind of looked like a big storm might be headed our way. I tried to stay in a decent position throughout the race, I'd say I was usually somewhere between 20th and 50th. I remember watching the lap counter and at 12 laps to go, I thought to myself "when it gets to the single digits, I need to start moving into a good position". The next time I checked it, what I thought would be 9 laps to go turned into 5 laps to go. I guess the race officials shortened the race 5 laps as a big storm was indeed headed our way. It was a pretty crazy scramble at that point, as everybody wanted to move up.
I cant remember if it was 2 or 3 laps to go when it started pouring. I got caught up in the first crash I saw happen. I didn't go down, but I pretty much came to a stop. The rest of the race was total chaos as bikes and bodies were laying all over the course in piles. I finished the race somewhat cautious ending up 28th.

Rob, Dominik and I went for ride Saturday morning on the river trail. Pretty nice. We discussed a plan for the 3 of us to work together. As it turned out, the plan pretty much went out the window as it started raining again shortly after we started racing. A bunch of guys crashed and in the end, most guys quit or got pulled. Only 38 of the over 100 starters finished. The course was a big challenge the whole race because it didn't rain everywhere. The race split in half with a group of about 20 up the road and a chase group of 18 or so that I was in. Eventually with 6 laps to go, we caught the lead group and it was all back together.
With 2 laps to go, I had moved up into the top 15, but coming into the last corner to start the last lap, the guy in front of me got chopped and hit his brakes pretty hard. I got into him and the guy behind me and lost a ton of positions. The race payed 20 deep and I finished 24th. My best finish in the 1/2's at this race, but I really wanted to finish in the money.


About 15 minutes in on Saturday - Big rain drops - Photo by Steve Stewart

Sunday I wanted to try to survive the whole race. Historically, I've never made it further than about halfway at this course. The cry baby hill section is pretty wild to ride through...Good motivation also.





Cry baby hill action - Sunday - Photo by Steve Stewart

 That's me in the middle of the photo #254. Although it didn't seem as hot this year, there were more water hoses shooting mist across the road which was nice.





Cry baby hill - Photo by Andrew Willis

 I was feeling pretty good Sunday. I was just sitting in for the most part trying to save as much energy as possible. Around 20 minutes in, I felt like I was drifting too far back, so I put a pretty hard dig in and got up towards the front. With nobody directly in front of me, I was able to go up the hill as hard as I wanted, which was probably a little too hard because I was on the ropes for the next 20 minutes. I made it to 9 laps to go before I got dropped. Rob was able to stay in the whole race and got 34th.
My cat 3 team mates did well with Brandon getting 9th, 4th, and 4th and Ryan got 14th on Sat and 12th on Sunday. It shouldn't be long before they're racing in the 1/2's.

The weekend overall was one of the funnest race weekends I've had. I learned a lot just following Dominik a few times and seeing how much different his general lines were than mine. I also got some new insight on tire pressure.

It's nice this year to start my summer break and still be motivated to ride a lot and race. I guess that's what happens when you don't try to hit every race possible. I'm already planning out my late road/cyclocross season. I think I'm going to go for a new mileage record this July as well.

May

I guess some good motivation came in May in that we finally got our new team bikes. Cannondale Caad 10's

The bikes ride really nice. Super stiff, but pretty comfortable on longer rides. I like the way they corner a lot. Anyhow, we also got our 2011 kits in mid April, so the total package is complete.

There were a couple of weeks after the racing in April and the races that would start in May, so I wanted to get a good block of riding in to try to get ready for the Tulsa Tough in June. It seemed like the weather changed overnight from needing arm and knee warmers to super hot!

The first event in May was the last of the OKC Velo TT series races. The conditions were not great with it being cold and windy. I ran my slowest time of the three races, but so did everyone else. I ended up with 2nd for the day and 3rd overall in the series.

The following weekend was the state championship team time trial on Saturday and the state criterium championship on Sunday. Rob, Andy and I formed a team and drove up to Hominy Saturday morning to give it a go. We felt like we had a pretty good plan, but once we were actually underway, it got a little sloppy. We ended up getting 3rd overall. The bummer was that we were only 2 seconds behind 2nd place, but we beat 4th place by 10 seconds. We're already planning on doing it again next year. If I'm not mistaken, this was the first year for a state team time trial. It was much more fun than doing the individual 40K state time trial for sure!

Sunday was the state criterium in Sand Springs. Same course as last year...pretty fun, but not as hot.
Jeremy decided to come out of retirement, and race with Rob, Shawn, and me. As we were warming up, we came up with a plan of marking 3 riders we thought would do well, and pretty much just shadow them. It was comical the first 2 laps of the race. The plan got thrown out the window pretty quickly as the Tulsa Tough riders were attacking from the start.

The race was 75 minutes long. I made it for 1 hour before I got dropped from the main field. I guess it's better than last years result, but still pretty disappointing.

The following Wednesday was the after work crit at the Edmond fire training center. The course layout this time was really fun. It was windy and the big hill was left out, so with the challenging corners, it was more of a true crit course. There were probably 25-30 high quality riders in the cat 123 A-race. Brandon and I were the only guys on the team who were able to make it out, and we were looking for a little redemption from the first race. The race started fast and pretty much stayed that way the whole time. In the photo above, this is the initial break that got things started. I had to kill it to bridge up to Brandon and the other 2 riders. Eventually the break grew to 7 riders.

There were a couple of awesome photographers taking pictures. I really like this one. In the end, the race went well for us. I got 2nd and Brandon got 4th. If I would have jumped a few seconds sooner, I'm pretty sure I would have won, but 2nd was good.
The last weekend in May was the Texas state criteriums. There was actually 4 days of racing due to Memorial day, but Rob and I decided to go down and do the Sunday and Monday races.

The weather was hot and the courses were the same both days. Sunday we went clockwise and Monday we went counterclockwise. Sunday was the skill based Texas state championships. There were about 80 or 90 cat 2's in our race. The course basically circled a small college facility. It was actually shaped kind of like a big circle with a little corner cut out, in other words, not very technical. The cat 2 race was 75 minutes long. With the weather being hot and all, it seemed like once we hit the 1 hour point and the lap counter showed 5 laps to go, guys just started popping left and right. Long story short, Rob and I got caught behind 1 too many gaps and found ourselves chasing the last 3 laps what was left of the main field. I think I ended up 27th.

Monday was the age based race. I think there were around 65 riders or so. It was basically 40-49 year olds with Texas state jerseys awarded to 40-44 and 45-49 age groups. There was quite a variety of rider abilities in the race. Most of the race went really well for me. I got in a good break early on. It started out as 4 riders and grew to about 12 riders, then shrunk back down to 6 riders. The break, however, was never really organized. There were a lot of rival teams represented with more than 1 rider from each team, so there was non stop surging and attacking.

We had lapped a lot of the field and were 45 seconds or so ahead of the main field. At 2 laps to go, I put in too hard of an effort on one of my pulls, somebody attacked and I didn't have the legs to jump back on. I thought I could still finish in a money spot as the race payed 7 deep, but the main field caught me with about 300 meters to go. I think I got 20 something place and 11th in my age category. Not what I was hoping for race wise, but some good speed building work to prepare for the Tulsa Tough.