fellowshipofthechainring.org

Just a quick post to record that yes, I have got out on my bike while here in Colorado. I went on some familiar routes to take some easy loops while getting used to the altitude: The Poudre River trail, Bingham Hill Rd (which really does have a hill!) out to Bellevue and past Vern’s (famous for their giant cinnamon rolls).  All in all about 10 & 12 miles respectivly on the two rides.  Great to be out and getting a little fresh air.  As I get used to the altitude (read “get back into shape”) I will take on loops that have some more elevation change; Horsetooth being the main one that is accessible from my front door.  Looking forward to hearing about Oregon rides!

Performance Bike has a Tour de France Fantasy League competition, and the Fellowship of the Chainring has picked a team. I discovered the hard way last year that I should pick riders who have not been banned (this year I gave myself only 24 hours to spare to get the latest on banned riders). I feel sorry for anyone who picked members from team Astana, seeing as the entire team is banned from the tour this year. The other thing I figured out last year was to check on the formula for winning. Apparently, the yellow jersey is not as important as simply winning jersey points (green, white, polka dotted) and winning individual stages (you can have the best overall time without winning many stages).

So, without further ado, below are my team picks:

• VALVERDE Alejandro – I wanted a strong climber as this tour favors climbers
• MC EWEN Robbie – I liked what I saw last year, and his name popped up as a sprinter to watch out for
• CAVENDISH Mark – Mark, a Team Columbia rider (bonus right there) is also a strong sprinter
• GERDEMANN Linus – Other than the fact that I like the name, Linus, he faired very well (for such a bargain) as a one-time yellow jersey wearer last year and combativity award winner
• KIRCHEN Kim – Here’s another Team Columbia rider who took second in the Tour de Suisse, which must have many hills in it.
• CARDENAS Felix – I decided to look at Team Barlow, a team I had some respect for, and I explored the rider profiles of all riders that were in the right budget range, and Felix was one of them
• SOLER MAURICIO – He was last year’s King of the Mountains, so I’m going with Mauricio this year
• SIUTSOU Kanstantin – Another Team Columbia rider whose name popped up somewhere
• CIOLEK Gerald – I had $400 to spend and two rider slots left, so I looked for names that rang a bell and then read to see if they won anything (to be honest, I was getting ready to finish the team)

Some of these riders may not pan out at all, but I’m hoping the variety of riding styles of my top riders will pay off.

I thought I would say a grand hello to my web design students to show them how much better blogging software is than doing it all by yourself on notepad. They are my padawan learners, so they they have to snatch the proverbial pebble from my hand before they use the software.

I’m back in the saddle again getting ready for a wonderful season of cycling. I finally decided to get off my duff—actually, that’s only partially true. I actually got on my duff; it’s just that I got my duff on my Wierwolf saddle instead of the comfy chair.

I can thank Catholicism for my return to cycling commuting. During the Superbowl yesterday, several party-goers were commenting about what they were going to give up for Lent. I decided to give up driving my car to work.

It felt good to get back on my bike. I had trouble though when I saw my cycling computer. I hate the inevitable resetting of the odometer. It was good to note that I logged at least 875 miles, but I just hate starting over at 0. I put off the reset with the excuse that I wanted to document the mileage before resetting. Now that I’ve documented it, I guess there’s nothing left to do, but send it back to 0, square one, home base, goose egg.

At least I finally have a New Year’s resolution; and only 1 month late. My resolution is to log in over 1,000 miles this year. I plan to ride the full century at Reach the Beach, and that plus the training and another round of the MS Bike ride should get me there. Only time will tell though.

Thanks to Triguy, the Fellowship will make its Hollywood debut in 2009 in “The Burning Plain.” Anowyn, Triguy, and yours truly were “technical extras” in the filming of the next Charlize Theron film by the writer of Babel, Guillermo Arriaga.

The film weaves together two storylines taking place in the past and present. Basinger will play Gina, the mother of Charlize Theron’s character as seen in childhood. Theron will play Sylvia, who tries to find common ground with her parents after a turbulent childhood. The two narratives eventually converge. The drama begins shooting in early November in New Mexico.

Before I start booking flights to next year’s Oscar ceremony, I should point out that we may not make it past the cutting room floor. If we do become a celluloid sacrifice, it won’t be due to our superb acting or cycling skills. It will probably be the fault of the nosy couple that sneaked out from behind a rock on the 4th or fifth take to try to get in the film.

It was a blast being in the production and getting a first-hand look behind the scenes of making a film. All of the crew was so professional. I got a sense that everyone loved what they did, and they all did their best to put in 110%.

It was my first ride of the year as well, and it felt great to get on my bike again. We spent the entire morning shooting a 3-5 minute scene between the Burnside and Steel bridges. Anowyn and I began by the Burnside bridge, and Triguy started at the steel bridge. We crossed paths a few moments after Anowyn and I cruised by Charlize and Jose Maria Yazpik. The scene typically ended about the time we rode past the roundabout by the steel bridge. We estimated that through all the takes we probably rode close to 7 miles in all.

We had several near misses as we rode by Charlize’s real-life dog (does a dog count as an extra?). I’m happy to note that we did not run over Charlize’s dog; I don’t need my 5 minutes of fame through that type of infamy. I did run over a cable during the first run-through. After that, one of the ADs told us to ride on the other side of the path.

We got paid $10 more than the standard extras because we were technical extras due to our specialized skill. And I have to say that they got their $10 worth; it’s not easy riding past Charlize, Jose, a camera guy, and the guy that was holding up the big white reflective board, especially when you have to look like nothing in particular is going on.

To be honest, I’m more excited that “Little Joe” will be in the movie than the fact that I might be recognizable as the second blur of a cyclist rides by.

If that scene doesn’t make it, I may still be in the movie because we also shot a scene at the Portland airport. That was even more interesting. Rather than rope everything off and create a big disturbance to real travelers, we shot the scene as unobtrusively as you can get. Other than the guy with the steady cam and the actors and us extras endlessly walking the same circuitous path (past the actors, out of the camera view, turn around, up the escalator, down the escalator, back into position to wait for the next scene, repeat…), you would have no clue a film was being shot.

The best part was rather than rope off a section to film (to keep the random passersby, who aren’t getting paid, away from the scene), the ADs were dressed as sky cabs and wrangled travelers away from the camera.

So, next year’s academy award winning film, The Burning Plain, will hopefully showcase the talent of our Fellowship. Sorry, Cap, we missed you. We’ll still talk to you when we’re famous; maybe we’ll even let you ride with us!

I should probably clarify my disclaimer about not paying for Bicycling Magazine from my last post. I like Bicycling Magazine, but I’m getting sick of reading reviews for multi-thousand dollar Pinarello bikes. I teach high school, so I won’t be purchasing any costly carbon-fiber or magnesium frame bikes unless I want to completely bury myself in debt.

So I may not have Campy components; so I don’t call Cannondales Commondales; I might not have GPS on my cycling computer; my tires don’t cost more than $12 new; I don’t wear Hytrel membrane material.

No, none of that. I only buy a bike every decade or two; I ride that bike till it wears out; I use clinchers; I use thornproof tubes because I would rather increase my rolling resistance by 1% rather than fix a flat every ride; and my rain gear is typical commuter black and yellow. So sue me!?

I am content with where I am and what I’ve got. Little Joe is just fine with me! I have two legs and a decent hardtail that doubles for road riding and single tracking (depending on the tires…somewhat).

In spite of the fact that there are only 3,300 feet in elevation gain, they are all mostly crammed into one of four good hill climbs. There’s something for every type of hill lover. From the gentle 6% grade over 4 miles to the steep winding curves of McDonald hill, the climb to Timber (and out of Timber), and the wonderful 12% winding grade Clapshaw Hill Rd. at mile 65 — just when you thought you were done with climbing.

Before I go into much more description, I need to remind you that El Cap and I just finished a century the day before. As is usual, we begin the day like we finished the day before: not thinking about the ride that looms before us. The great guys at Kingsley Field were all telling us that they were choosing the 25 mile option; that’s the one on flat ground. I purposely tried not to think too long about the 73 mile option up to Vernonia and Timber because I was afraid of psyching myself out of it, and I knew very well that I couldn’t.

My habit is to be quiet on discussing what to do because two people discussing the ride can easily rationalize and talk each other out of the ride. However, if we don’t say anything, neither of us will want to be the one to bring up chickening out (and that’s what it would be really). I mean, I’ve never regretted doing the full Sunday ride, even the first time I did the MS bike ride when I practically choked on the century the day before. In hindsight, I must thank the organizers for not including a 50 mile option, because we probably would have taken it — what with making the ride an even 150 and all. But given the choice of 25 or 73, I just can’t justify only riding 25 miles; it’s a mild training ride.
With all that said, I never had a tougher time passing the 25-mile turn-off option in my life, and here’s why: not more than 4 miles into the ride, the route turned northward, and we smacked headlong into a nasty headwind. We were severely buffeted by the winds. I could hear fell voices taunting us to turn back and go under the mountain (metaphorically speaking).

Twice, El Cap and I tried drafting behind someone on a road bike, and each time they did all they could to shake us. I would have to coast, brake, speed up, move left, move right — all in random order — one right after the other, until we would ride up a slight incline, at which point, we on our MTBs couldn’t keep up. Those guys definitely did not have the spirit of the fellowship.

The worst part of the wind was not that it made other, faster riders, more cranky; it was that I knew that the wind was not going to let up until we started climbing up to Vernonia. In fact, just as I thought, the headwind had about the same effect as the 4-mile long hill to Vernonia, but in this case, it would be a 15-mile long headwind at the least.

to be continued…

El Cap and I just finished the MS bike ride a few hours ago, and in spite of my sore legs and shoulders, I have to say that this was the best. We did the full 177 miles (104 on Saturday and 73 on Sunday).

Saturday: Wine Country

Saturday’s ride was a century around the Willamette Wine Country. We started in Forest Grove, circled Hagg Lake, rode through Gaston, Yamhill, Carlton, Lafayette, the North Valley Rd rollers, Newberg, Wilsonville road around Parrot Mountain, up Bell and Ladd Hill Rd, Sherwood, Scholls, Oak Knoll Winery, and back to Forest Grove.

The Qualcom team, a mighty fine group of riders, helped give us a boost early in the ride, which brought our average speed up to 17 or 18, but once they turned off to make their ride a metric century, we whittled away until at the end of the ride, we had a 14.5 mph average speed.

Highlights

• The great volunteers at the rest stops
• Those with MS who cheered us on
• Coming down the hill into Sherwood
• My wife, mom, and two littlest kids who cheered me on at Oak Knoll Winery (and showed me their exercises)
• Using my cell phone as a soundtrack to motivate me up the hills
• Hardboiled eggs on a stick
• McLaughlin Rd (the best kept secret of Yamhill County)

to be continued

Today’s stage 9 wraps up the Alps mountain stages with a win for Columbian rider, Soler Hernandez. He attacked on the mountains and never let up. The good news for our Fantasy team is that Levi Leipheimer got us some points and moved us back up into the sub 2000s place. In fact, Levi is now in number 9 position, which, in my opinion is a great place to be, especially considering the fact that the tour moves out of the mountain stages.

We are now one stage away from being half-way through the tour. As I predicted, the mountains would shake up the tour a bit, and if you’ve been following the yellow jersey, you’ll note that it has changed hands quite few times. Cancellara, who seemed to dominate the yellow jersey in the pre-mountains is now back to 111th place, and Tom Boonen is 124th.

I think Kloden has a good shot, and I’ve been seeing Valverde hanging around the top of the list for some time. Vinokourov is slipping from his crashes earlier on, but I don’t think we’ve seen the last of him. I’ve got my eye on Leipheimer; he’s been slowing working his way up into the top 10, and he’s got a superb team behind him, not to mention the experience that Lance brought the team from 7 tour wins.

Other names recently thrown around have been Contador and Evans, but I haven’t been following their names as much. The thing about the Tour that makes everything so difficult to predict (and much more exciting if you ask me), is that there is so much to the Tour; it’s not just about the fastest sprinters. There are huge mountain passes, many miles of time trialing (an interesting side note is that there are no team time trials in this Tour de France), and there’s no one dominant “shoe-in” like Lance or Ullrich or Basso. In fact, I don’t think that there is any previous winner of the Tour de France competing this year, so the field is wide open. There are many experienced riders, but most have played supporting roles in previous tours.

Tomorrow’s stage heats up as the riders head for the Mediterranean (Marseilles). I’ve been to Nice and Cannes, but I’ve never been to Marseilles. I’m sure it’s beautiful, but it’s also hot, and it’s in the middle of the summer. I don’t envy the riders, but I bet there will be an accident or two because of the effects of heat on the riders. We’ll see…

Now that the tour is on a break today, this is as good as any time to finish my Tour de France explanations (I’m also afraid that I won’t finish this before the Tour is over). Anyway, on to Part Deux: 

You now know about the main colored jerseys; however, yellow, polka-dot, and green aren’t the only colored jerseys worn. There is also the white jersey, and the white numbers on red (combativite), and let us not forget the “red lantern.”

The White Jersey (Maillot Blanche)

This jersey is given to the best rider 25 years or younger. According to the Tour de France 2007 Rules (www.letour.fr), the winner of the white jersey wins 20,000 Euros (that’s about 27,500 US dollars according to the Google calculator).

As of stage 8 (Sunday, 7/15), Linus Gerdemann (of T-Mobile) has the white jersey.

Fighting Spirit Award (Combativité)

This award goes to the rider with the most fighting spirit in him. This award is given at the end of each stage. There are 8 judges (cycling specialists) who decide on the rider with the most fighting spirit. Then, at the end of the entire tour, there is a “super-combativité” award handed out with a cool 20,000 euros to go with it.

The Red Lantern (Lanterne Rouge)

No, the red lantern is not some DC comic or something. The name comes from the light at the end of the caboose, which, as you have already guessed, is red. This “award,” and there’s no euros for this one as far as I can tell, goes to the last rider to successfully complete the race (not get disqualified or injured).

Bicycling Magazine has a great article on the history of the Lanterne Rouge and the writer’s hopes for Zabriskie winning it. The article is a bit tongue in cheek though, but it isn’t that far off, since Zabriskie is now in 171st place out of 172 riders. It’s a distinction that no American has ever won.

The greatest Lanterne Rouge of all time was Jacky Durand, the amazing and entertaining French legend, who over the course of his career launched literally thousands of ill-advised, stupid, insane, overly long doomed breakaways — and ended up winning two national championships, three stages of the Tour, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Tours on those rare attacks when everything went right. In 1999, Durand pulled off what I think of as the most remarkable feat in cycling: He simultaneously won the Tour de France’s award for Most Aggressive Rider, which paid 100,000 Euro, and the Lanterne Rouge….

The most mysterious Lanterne Rouge, I think, was also the first: Arsene Millocheau, who finished nearly 65 hours behind the winner in the first Tour de France in 1903, then never raced it again. One appearance, one Lanterne Rouge. It’s the stuff of legend and magic.

Well, I’d love to continue, but I have to get up in the morning to do a training ride. I’ll leave you with one more tasty tidbit about the Tour de France:

Lance Armstrong rode over 2200 miles in his last Tour de France (’05), and he averaged over 25 miles per hour over the course of the entire ride. He typically would go through 1 chain a week, and he had his tires cured for many years in a wine cellar before using them on his bike.