StoVeHenge – Why I Won't Be Doing the Winters Road Race This Weekend

Nigel Tufnel: In ancient times, hundreds of years before the dawn of history, an ancient race of people... the Druids. No one knows who they were or what they were doing...

I had to take a week or so off from riding to take care of an important home repair. Jen says I traded one obsession for another. As of yesterday, the job is officially done, and today I got out on the bike for a couple of hours.

Before: The Contempo III in most of its splendor

Over the past sixteen years, the broiler, the top oven, and then the bottom oven quit working. Appliance repair techs said parts were no longer available, so we closed the valves to each unit, leaving only the cooktop operational. The day before my most recent race (the Dunnigan Hills Road Race–I haven't done a post on this one, as I punctured thirteen miles in and proudly, chased solo, for 30 miles, unsuccessfully for a magnificent "DNP") our great, 1965 O”Keefe & Merritt Contempo III started leaking natural gas. This tiny 1954 stucco house is our first. We've been hoping to update and remodel it dramatically, but over the last decade and a half, haven't settled on the design, finances and logistics. But this “dead stove” did present us with a simple, one-week, super-inexpensive opportunity to improve our little kitchen.

Tweety would have to wait

We had been hoping to go camping for a short getaway before Jen starts school in September, but a fully functional kitchen is more important. And when I start a project, it becomes my number one priority, from sunup to sundown. I had no freelance production jobs scheduled, so this was the time to crank this job out. Training rides were off my calendar.

Our trusty backup during repairs

This is my family's Coleman camp stove. It's about 55 years old. We also used our gas grill, microwave, and our toaster oven in the interim.

After

Our friend Ryan helped us shove the old stove out the door and up to its current (temporary) resting place. Jen found a great deal on a used stove, which our fantastic friends Shaun and Stacy brought in their pickup, and helped us haul it up to our living room for storage until I finished up the framing, electrical, gas, sheetrock, and painting.

Over the next days I opened up the wall, built a bar-counter, and installed the “new” stove.

"These go to eleven"... well... to "HI" anyway

I haven't totaled the receipts, but I'm pretty sure we did this whole modification for under $400, including the stove! Jen and I are “fighting” over who gets to cook, while the “loser” actually wins by getting to sit at the cool little bar/counter, chatting with the chef of the moment. Still hunting for some bar stools Today I finally had a chance to get out on a ride. My very rested body was able to hammer pretty well. I ascended Big Rock within one second of my best time, with a VAM of 1452. I managed a decent average speed of 18.9 mph for today's 44-mile ride, however I can tell I've traded some fitness for freshness.

While we still haven't reshaped this 940 square foot mid-century house into the domicile of our dreams, this fix has at least opened up the long, skinny, galley kitchen a little.

Now while I drum up some more freelance work, I'll start disassembling the old stove so I can load it into the truck to haul to a salvage company. Then I'll check the racing calendar to see what road races are left before the season wraps up.

Today's ride:

The 30th Annual Patterson Pass Road Race

Stringing out the group on the 2nd climb (this would pay off on the next lap)
photo: Alex Chiu

Event	30th Annual Patterson Pass Road Race
Date	08/03/14
Group	M45+4
Bib #	821
Result	3rd of 25

The Course:

Two laps of a 23-mile “Loop: Patterson Pass WEST from registration, north on Flynn, north on Carroll (after freeway), east on Altamont Pass Road, east on Grant Line, south on Midway back to start/finish area. A 23 mile loop with  a lot of up and downhill (mountainous) in the first half, rolling in the second half. Two very fast descents.”

Details of the race:

The organizers definitely go easy on us by only making us do two laps of this tough course (the Elite 4, E3, W1/2/3 do three laps and Men1/2/Pro do four).

The crazy looking power transmission structures near the start/finish area
photo: my phone

The start/finish is right in front of a sizable electrical power station on Patterson Pass Road. I'm guessing this is a transmission station that distributes the massive amount of power generated by the thousand of wind power generators in the area.

Wind power generators atop Patterson Pass
photo: me - a frame grab from one of my stock footage shots

From the whistle, we climb 1800 feet in 4.8 miles. Most m45s I know, wisely ride with compact gearing these days (50/34 up front) and can spin in the saddle on climbs like this while they study the competition, but for several reasons, I'm stuck with my standard gearing (53/39, 12-27). At 8 mph I'm barely turning 64 rpm, so to avoid falling over, I hit the final 0.8 miles of the ascent on the front of the group, even though this bit is more challenging due of the powerful headwind coming over the pass. Even so, the group remained intact over the top.

The non-technical, no-brakes, westbound descent, all the way to Flynn road is a blast! It made me glad to have a 53-tooth chainring.

A tight right turn onto Flynn gives the legs a chance to pump out some of the evil that accumulated on the climb. Everyone was still there, but I sensed that some weren't recovered, and the pace up front was too relaxed for my taste. As charming a group as I'm sure this was, I didn't want to have a big bunch sprint to deal with after two laps. Flynn takes us with the wind as it climbs an easy 545 feet over 3.7 miles. No harm in getting on the front here, so I hit it harder and stretched out the group.

photo: Alex Chiu

I can't say I was thinking ahead here, but in retrospect I think hitting this short, second climb hard, broke some guys down quite a bit in advance of events on the second lap.

photo: Alex Chiu

Cresting the climb I sat up and waited for 3 or 4 others to pass. We all made it safely through a tricky, off-camber left turn, then blasted down towards the i580 overpass. The freeway summits Patterson pass at this point, which behaves exactly like the venturi of a carburetor–amplifying the speed of the already powerful wind that perpetually flows from west to east over this pass. Even though we're beginning a steep descent, we have to work hard here.

Swinging right onto Caroll Rd. we have the wind with us again. As a full pack, we covered these 6.8 miles at an average of 32 mph.

A tricky right turn onto Midway Road puts us into a very tough crosswind, reducing our speed to just under 19 mph.

At this point one more right turn brings us to the beginning of lap two.

Even though we're heading west, into the direction the wind comes from, we're sheltered by the hills for the first part of the climb.

I'm assuming at this point that we have most of the pack trailing, although I'm pretty sure many of them are about to get dropped as we ascend these two climbs again.

The guys who climbed well earlier were beginning to do so again. Halfway up Patterson Pass Rd. the group thinned dramatically. Harold Reimer (LuxVue-SunPower Racing) cruised on the front, even as we reached the tough, windy upper section. I looked back to see that five of us had a twenty-second gap on the strung-out field. Moments later, Harold accelerated. Two riders couldn't match the pace, but Rob Easley (iRT-Reactor p/b JL Velo) and I stayed with him. Rob and I were in a breakaway together recently in the Leesville Lodoga road race.

We had a solid gap by the summit, so we introduced ourselves and got busy working together. We built on our lead over the next ten miles. Our moto official checked in with another by radio and told us we had a 1:30 gap back to a lone chaser.

At this point we were halfway through the “easy”, fast, tailwind section of the course, averaging about 37 mph for six miles. We stepped up our pace. None of us wanted to relax and risk getting caught.

Turning onto Midway Rd., the cones and markers were tricky to interpret and both Rob and I took crappy lines. In fact we almost missed the turn. Harold, who had been taking his pull on the front, sat up and waited for us to hook on again.

Our pace for lap 1, with the whole pack, was 19.5 mph. As a lean, mean 3-man breakaway we were flying through the second lap at 20.5 mph. The hard work suddenly took its toll on me and some groin cramping caused me to fall behind Rob and Harold for the final 1.8 miles to the finish. I couldn't close the gap alone in the crosswind, so I did the best I could, checking to make sure no riders were coming up on me from behind. I crossed the line third, about twenty seconds after first-place Harold and second-place Rob.

Clearly I forgot to put on my best "look" for the finish photo
photo: Alex Chiu

Two minutes later, powerful Dan Wood (Cushman & Wakefield Racing) came across the line for 4^th place after chasing solo for eighteen miles.

I accumulated five more upgrade points with this race result, bringing my total to 21. A category 4 rider with 20 points can request to upgrade, but isn't required to do so unless they get 30 points in any twelve-month period. I think I'll wait and get a bit more experience before moving up.

Results

http://www.usacycling.org/results/?year=2014&id=2508&info_id=79457