Murrieta

One of these days, I'll have to write up a little review of the Cannondale system six bike I tried to get used to over the past four months. In a nutshell, the caveman review would not be so good...

I never got that bike where I needed it to be position wise, and I had kind of forgotten that bottom brackets are not supposed to creak and groan with every pedal stroke.

Last wednesday, I pedalled the old pinarello for the first time since November. It felt like I had ridden it just the other day - kinda like a comfortable pair of old slippers - ya know, the slippers your dog has abused... the one's that look kind of funky, or smell funky, yeah, the one's that are molded to your feet and have some distinctive signs of personality and uniqueness...

yeah, that's what the pinarello is like for me - felt good on the bike for the first time in awhile.

Here was my training week:

M - off
T - off
W - 45 minutes with 14 minutes above 5.2 W/kg
th - off
F - 30 minutes with openers
Sat - tour de murrieta crit (1:15)
Sun - tour de murritea circuit race (2 hrs)

that's a pretty typical week for me - I usually do one more day during the week where I get 20 minutes in the 5-5.5 w/kg range.

I still am having the leg problems - not so bad on saturday, though, I had to modulate effort to avoid what I feel as if are calf cramps.

Sunday I felt good, and was doing my best to cover important moves in the circuit race - followed three distinct ones that I remember in the last 30 k or so? Covered one with Mark Scott, one with Thurlow - countered that one with a dig of my own. I spent another chunk of fun tickets covering a big dig by Pat Caro. You can pretty much see those efforts in the srm screen capture above (the circuit race is the upper plot, the crit is the lower). Whaddya know, "the move" that finally succeeded included Thurlow, Scott, Noble, and Caro...

I really had to modulate my left leg on some of those efforts - I am getting pretty good at bringing the effort right up to the point just before my left calf just wants to curl up into a little, knotted, painful ball...

The finale was a pretty good demonstration of how sprinting is not really all about being able to put out gobs of power. I had full-on double calf cramps during the last 150 meters (basically from the moment I started pedaling out of the last corner before the finish) and was unable to stand or make maximal power. Because of pretty good positioning, I was able to sneak into the top 10 in the field sprint.

Here are the weekends results:

http://www.scnca.org/schedule2008.asp?category=Masters+35%2B&event=Tour+de+Murrieta+Stage+1&rank=0

http://www.scnca.org/schedule2008.asp?category=Masters+35%2B&event=Tour+de+Murrieta+Stage+2&rank=0

and the overall:

http://www.scnca.org/schedule2008.asp?category=Masters+35%2B&event=Tour+de+Murrieta+GC&rank=2

I'll give the legs another go with a midweek crit here in Del Mar (shhhh... don't tell my boss I'm leavin' a wee-bit early! LOL!) tomorrow and then we'll see about a really hard weekend of training/racing in the run up to the San Dimas Stage Race for the end of the month!

see ya out there,

Turkey Weekend Project

I've had this Cannondale frame/fork and build kit laying around since around March or so - just haven't had the motivation or drive to finally build it up.

I know, I know... Pretty crazy, huh?!

Well, my employer was nice enough to give us a few hours off on Wednesday prior to this long turkey day weekend - so, I took advantage of this early departure...

...and went for a ride!

hah! - but when I got back to "villa de Willett", I set out to get this bike built up!

It's been a long process, ya see, I'm kinda addicted to SRM based power and all, and this bike has/is making that a difficult thing to accomplish! Cannondale loves to do things "their way" so, that made the SRM Pro crank I've been using since '02/'03 obsolete - that Campy square taper crank compatible SRM doesn't work with the proprietary Cannondale BB/Hollowgram crank arms.

So, the quest began - and I've had lots of help along the way. First, Jason Yanota of the bikeage helped me out by selling me a barely used Cdale SRM spider/chainrings that I'd eventually be needing. Then, I picked up an SI crankarm from Craig over at wiredbike.com. I thought I was set at this point back in the April-ish time period...

Well, much to my dismay, it turns out that in order to fit an SRM on a Cdale, you need a slightly wider BB spindle. I could have made some modifications to the crank that came with the frame/fork (that I bought throug the team I raced for this year - JambaJuice/TaylorMade http://www.sd-fogracing.com ). So, it was April/May and the season was in top gear - I didn't really want to dork around with the position/bike I'd been riding for the last 15,000 km's...

Plus, I'm pretty lazy! :-)

Around comes last week, and I was figgerin' I needed to build this sucker up pretty soon in order to not be shamed on the next team ride I showed up for. So, I shot an email over to Craig @ wiredbike.com (make sure that if you are in the power meter market you give him a shot at the sale - he'll give you $50 off with a special BTR code, BTW) and it looks like he'll eventually be helping me buy an SRM compatible Cannondale spindle. Nice!

Also, a couple months ago, I saw an opportunity to pick up used SI Cannondale crank arms/BB spindle while perusing the obra.org mailing list (oooohhh, my disdain at the time for the obra officials was overridden by the need for cheap, used bike parts - LOL! :-) ).

Then, a few months passed...

With all the parts in hand to get this sucker together (albeit sans SRM power capability), I busted out the hacksaw, star nut setter, and some elbow grease/patience and finally built up the cdale on Wednesday afternoon. It went together really easily - the Campy Record 10spd parts are pretty sweet. Total pie to assemble.

I'm no pro when it comes to building bikes, so I'm sure you'll give me plenty of grief if you see me out on the road, but here it is after the first ride I took it on this morning:



Here's a close-up of a saddle I took a chance on - it's a Selle-San Marco Aspide - no padding, just the carbon shell:



I was surprised at how comfortable it appeared to be after the 70 minute jaunt I took it out for today. We'll see how it works out long-term.

You'll notice that I have a PowerTap power meter on the bike whilst I'm waiting to get the SRM on-line.

The trials I've had with that thing will have to wait for another post! ;-)

The PowerTap seems to work OK, but damn, trying to download that sucker (it's an older model with a serial port connector) proved to be quite a challenge!

As for the Cannondale, it didn't seem to make me break any of my previous records I have thrown down while going up Couser Canyon Road near where I live, but dang - new bikes always feel pretty cool!!!

I am having a bit of a hard time getting where I'd like to be position-wise - I reckon I'll need a shorter stem (120mm currently on it) and a seat post with a wee-bit more setback. Hard to get italian seat tube angles these days for us "old skoolers"... ;-)

Hope you all had a great holday weekend here in the U.S., and if you are elsewhere in the world - I hope you just had a great weekend! :-)

peace,
-kraig