Bikes and Code

Cyclocross is my favourite type of bike racing. Due to my general lack of fitness and catastrophically (for a bike racer) low hematocrit, it’s also a type of racing that I’m pretty unsuited for. But amateur racing is for fun and not glory, so we’re not going to focus on that.

Ottawa has a great series of races each fall and while I knew it was something special, I had hopes that Vancouver would offer a similar number of races. As it turns out, there are a bunch of races, unfortunately, 4 of the 6 in the Lower Mainland are on two weekends as opposed to spread out over the season. Alas.

On the plus side, it’s easier to pretend you are a Serious Bike Racer when you have back to back races, which was kind of cool for me.

Race 1: New Brighton Park

Tough, tough race – Google Earth

Start was paved and slightly downhill into a paved hairpin. Bunny hop up a curb and into a narrow, muddy climb. No need to run up this one. Some up and down twisties then a double barrier for running. Up over some more grass and into some very tight, massively off camber corners where speeds dropped to below walking. Couple more corners, then some deep sand, more grass, two very short steep climbs, if it had been wet, both would have been run-ups, but as it was, riding was possible. Down to more sand and a giant step, then a final climb onto the pavement again.

Tough for me mainly as there was effectively no place to recover. I’m a decent technical rider, but I need to have short sections to ease up for a bit and bring the heart rate under control for a bit. Otherwise, it’s a more pure form of suffering which does not bode well for me. This was the case here. The course was, despite some short punchy climbs, was relatively flat, so there were no extended downhills to ease up a bit. To use some retarded sport dude statement, I was deep in the hurt locker the entire race.

Placed near the back of the pack. On the lead lap though.

Race 2: Vanier Park

More my style and possibly one of the most fun courses I’ve ever raced on – Google Earth

The start on this one was across a flat, hard packed and very bumpy grass field. Quick dismount to get up 6ish stairs and back on to climb up alongside the Planetarium. Winding climb up through the trees, not too steep, but in some thickish grass so it was somewhat of a power climb. Off camber hairpin at the top to drop down to the main part of the course again. Over a bridge and then continue the descent through some fast sweeping corners. Deep gravel hairpin, then some more twisty grass stuff and a couple of barriers on a steep uphill. From there, into what was called the maze. 4 back to back tight hairpins, 2 very off camber. The last part of the course was a hard packed mud out and back and a fun steep downhill into a right/left/right before the finish line.

The nice thing about this course, aside from the lack of places where running was required, was that there were places to recover. The relatively long downhill beside the Planetarium allowed for a few seconds of respite, which I need badly in a ‘cross race. It showed. I finished just behind someone who was nearly 3 minutes ahead of me at New Brighton. I was 2:30 behind the winner at Vanier and more like 6:00 behind the winner at New Brighton. Ended up 14th out of about 40, so not terrible I suppose.

What did I learn here? Not much. I don’t do well in road races that have lots of climbs as I am not terribly good at them. That said, climbing in a ‘cross race seems to be good for me. It means there will be recovery time later. Still, was well above the halfway through the field point at Vanier, so I’m taking that as a good sign.

The traditional last race of the OBC Eastern Ontario Cyclocross Series is at Mooney’s Bay in Ottawa. A gigantic (to the gravitationally challenged) hill dominates the park while most of the rest of the park is fairly flat. Being the last race of the year, in Ottawa, in late November, early December, there is also often snow.

Last year, there was about a foot and a half and I took the path of cowardice and stayed at home. It seemed a good idea at the time, but a couple of months later, I found myself regretting it. Races like that are the stuff legends are made of. At the very least, they make decent war stories to tell and re-tell. I made a vow to myself that if there was a snowy race this year, I would definitely do it.

If I haven’t mentioned it in the past, I am a fair weather cyclist for the most part. I feel no shame in admitting this. I do not gain enjoyment from going out for a long ride in the rain. Even in the summer, if the weather is terrible, I am more likely to ride on the trainer for an hour or two than go outside. This is mostly pragmatic. My wrenching abilities are horrific and I have a general lack of manual dexterity. Bad weather almost always means you have to spend more time re-greasing and cleaning all sorts of fun parts of the bike. Since I like my gear to be at least in decent shape, I feel that the wiser course of action is generally to keep my bike out of the worst of the rain and it will generally last longer.

The point of this is that as a fair weather cyclist, I spent my few training hours in the last week or so indoors. Not outdoors in the snow. And in previous years, when I wasn’t going to ride in the snow anyhow, well, I didn’t ride in the snow. Today, there was somewhere between 6 and 10 cm of snow on the ground, this was far more than I had ever ridden in. This snow covered the entire course, save for a couple of very short sections in the parking lots.

I was able to come to the following conclusion: riding in snow is very difficult.

That is, of course, when you can ride. Much of the first lap was spent running. Later laps riding the entire thing was in order, but still. The bike does not go where you point it. If you get off balance slightly, the bike washes out from underneath you. You can actually go pretty good when you are on the hard pack snow in the middle of the course, but if you veer off that 4 inch wide trail, watch out. In terms of time, one section that I was clearing in about 45 seconds when I stayed on the little packed down bit took me nearly two minutes when I slid off of it. In hindsight I should have just stopped and put the bike back on the narrow bit, rather than try to ride back onto the hard-pack ridge, but at the time I was in pain and not thinking too terribly clearly.

Ah well. Last race of the season. I have some epic blisters on my hands from something, my lower back is basically locked up from all the pulling and pushing trying to mash the bike through the deeper bits of snow. But the bike is cleaner than it was before I started, so that’s good. I used some good old MEC brand cold weather chain oil and there is still a nice thin film of the stuff, so that’s awesome. I’ll just have to pull apart a few other bits of the bike, regrease everything and let it collect dust for a couple of months.

Probably my last OBC Cross race as well. Though if we end up coming out this way some fall, I will without question bring my cross bike out to enjoy the series again.

Cyclocross is a sport of bad weather. Cold winds, rain and the threat of snow is taken in stride and often times, the weather plays an important role in a race. The second race at the Kanata Rec center was one of those. The temperature was hovering around the freezing mark with 30km/h+ winds and some light sleet. Or perhaps you could call it heavy snow, it really doesn’t matter.

This was the first race at the Kanata course where we were not sent up the gravel climb up the side of the main hill (according to my GPS, that climb hits about 14% at parts). Instead, the main elevation gain was up the other side of the hill and running. Even more entertaining was the fact that immediately after the run up, a pair of muddy switchbacks were presented. After scoping out the route through the switchbacks, I ended up electing to not remount the bike until I was through the first two. Most people tried to ride, but I found that running would tend to move me up a place. Considering I am an absolutely terrible runner, this was saying something. I also did not fall, which was nice. Some say that in cyclocross, if you don’t fall, you are not trying hard enough. I do not subscribe to that point of view yet. I much prefer to keep the rubber down for the time being, I don’t bounce as well as I used to.

Personally, it wasn’t my greatest race. I slogged through it, but it was far from stellar. I got lapped by the top three guys and that was about it. Second best result this year I suppose, though it was a longer lap, so perhaps not. I evidently just wasn’t with it mentally. I’d hit the long into the wind power sections and just wasn’t able to dial it up as high as I usually can. Ah well, they can’t all be good races.

I most likely will not be attending the Upper Canada Village race next week, which means one more to go this season. Too short it is, but the weather is just getting more and more unpleasant.

A code post is in the works, this week’s topic is going to be a ramble on how I feel about how Java has changed since I started using it in 1998.