Entangled at the 2015 US Cup Season Opener

Once again, Bonelli Park in San Dimas, CA played host to a microcosm of the international cross country mountain biking scene at the 2015 XC Season Opener - the US Cup.  Nearly 800 racers were in attendance, ranging from from amateurs to seasoned professionals, juniors to masters.  In the elite fields, twenty-two nations were represented amidst the blur of tall seats and highly coordinated outfits.  Forty-seven elite women and ninety-nine elite men.     

Barry Wicks and I made the journey to San Dimas to shake things out for the 2015 season, which will last until September.  As with any long commitment, we made sure to start things off conscientiously with two visits to the time-honored Bru Bar at Klatch Coffee San Dimas. Stimulating brew and Barry's colloquy on quantum entanglement proved to be the perfect warmup for our pre-race testing.  And as quickly as the interaction between entangled particles occurs, the 2015 race season was underway.   

The perennial first scene of the season-openers in Southern California - Klatch Coffee

Bikes assembled (and tuned) at the Holiday Inn Kona Endurance Team HQ, we dusted a couple warm-up laps to shake down the new equipment.  For 2015 the Endurance Team (Barry, Kris, Cory, Helen and Spencer) will be using 1x11 drivetrains and wheels from Shimano components, electronically adjustable suspension from Fox Racing Shox, Maxxis Tires,  Pro-Bikegear cockpit, FSA headsets and ODI grips.  

We decided we were warmed up enough after Barry had left sufficient amounts of sweat and blood on the course.  He liked his new bike so much he showered with it at the end of the day.

As I took in the first sight of the venue, I appreciated the familiar scene of race tape strewn across the hill and all of the trim cyclists zipping around aboard their fresh bikes and fresh coordinated outfits.  I thought to myself that we bike racers are like many entangled quantum systems.  We are all entangled in a system of behaviors which are highly correlated, if not linked.  For the last several months, most of us have had zero direct interaction, yet in March, our quantum state as racers may be taken as a whole, given the preparation we have all undergone during the winter.  Legs and lungs are primed for maximal performance (or at least pretty close), and at the start line, none of us can necessarily be described independently.  The energy at the first start line of the season is greater than the product of each of its individual parts.  Then it all blows apart, and we're all disentangled, and highly measurable.   

I measured in at 18th overall in the Elite men's field, 3rd for the US.  Barry had worked his way up from a back row start and lots of "handlebar entanglement" but suffered a flat on the penultimate lap, relegating him to the 30s.  In any case, the race was fast and furious, and left us both feeling motivated for the season to come.   

**RESULTS??! PRESS COVERAGE?!? Throughout the events last weekend, it became clear that water was not the only thing in short supply in California.  So was the press coverage of the race.  While ShoAir Cycling Group and Ride Biker Alliance did a FANTASTIC job of race coverage DURING the event, there was a drought of press coverage from major news outlets.  

Velo News, CyclingNews, where were you? Thanks to CyclingIllustrated.com, CanadianCyclist.com, and CyclocrossMagazine.com for getting race reports and a few photos catalogued.   

Check out the VIDEO REPLAY HERE: http://uscup.net/us-cup-tv/ 

Race Results are HERE: http://shoaircyclinggroup.com/events/race-results/ 

Funemployment and Special Arrangements with the Weather Gods

What precipitated this anomalously warm winter in the Pacific Northwest?  Is it global warming?  Is it natural variation?  Is it a secret deal with the weather gods?  

Whatever the cause, I'll always remember this balmy 2014/2015 winter and how it began at the final scene of my former "real" job.  It was a drizzly Friday afternoon in December, and I stood calmly at the Shipping counter of the local FedEx store with a packaged-up work computer addressed for permanent return to the mother ship.  In that underwhelming moment of sealing the packing slip, I said goodbye to my corporate title of “Manager of Development and Origination” and hello to my new sole proprietorship as "full time Professional Cyclist" for the Kona Bicycle Company.  

XKCD

My official resignation (and I deliberately call it that instead of “quit”) preceded my turning 30 years old, and touched off a winter of significantly decreased email-osis, along with wonderfully pleasant riding temperatures.  Of course, it was all planned out.  My self-promotion to Full Time Cyclist was the culmination of years of forethought, hard work and patience.  A dialed program full of support from family, friends, sponsors and awesome bosses, and even elaborate arrangements with the weather gods.  

Early scenes from Retirement 1.0

Mega-ridging bringing the warm "omega" winter to the PNW - See Cliff Mass Weather Blog to learn more

Notwithstanding the dialogue on whether global warming or natural variation is to blame for the warm winter in the PNW, I'll admit that it has more to do with my personal arrangement with the atmospheric deities than anything else.  All those years juggling the dual career wasn't just to support my cycling passion financially, but meteorologically as well. 

Typical scenes in Bellingham during January and February 2015

You see, spending twenty to thirty hours per week outside on a bicycle during the winter time at 48.7 degrees North latitude means that having any control over the weather is a big advantage.  In nearly all cases, such a thing is completely impossible.  Fortunately for me, I had developed some leverage with the craftspeople of climate whilst working for Ridgeline Energy.  At Ridgeline we developed and built power plants that would generate electricity directly from the wind and the sunshine.  Over the years, we developed and built three major wind farms, representing over 300 megawatts of renewable energy capacity (wind turbines).  For perspective, peak power output from all of these turbines is equivalent to a peloton of approximately 1.2 million cyclists pedaling simultaneously at 250 watts, or approximately 666,666 Barry Wicks’ time-trialing at 450 watts.  These wind farms will continue to power homes and factories in the Pacific Northwest with clean, stable-priced electricity for many years to come.  I once calculated that we had placed enough “green” energy into the grid such that my share (of our 30 person team) just barely offset the carbon dioxide equivalent emissions of my bike racing adventures.  

In any case, all of this pleased the architects of the elements, who were willing to arrange mild winter weather at home during critical training periods, thus helping to ensure that the 2015 race season would get off to a good start.  As long as I kept up my end of the bargain (training diligently), they would keep the ambient temperature and trail conditions very hospitable.  

In addition to the weather, I've also benefited tremendously from strength training at Trailhead Athletics in Bellingham, regular training plan consultation with Peaks Coaching's Brig Brandt, and physiological testing with Herriott Sports Performance in Seattle.

As if that weren't enough, I've renewed a great contract with Kona Bicycles and will be flying the black and orange proudly across the globe as part of the Kona Factory Endurance Team.  We'll be aboard top-of-the-line equipment from Shimano drivetrain and wheels, Fox suspension, Maxxis tires, PRO Bike Gear components, FSA headsets, WTB saddles, Champion System clothing, Smith Optics eyewear, Giro helmets and shoes, Clif Bar nutrition, and Stages Cycling power meters.    

Chuckanut Drive, Photo Credit: @sherburnator

Despite the great outdoor riding conditions this winter, there has been plenty of work done indoors, too.  Strength and conditioning at Trailhead Athletics in Bellingham, and physiological testing at Herriott Sports Performance in Seattle.  

I couldn't be too selfish though.  By February the whole weather arrangement had become a huge bummer for the ski folk and watershed managers, among others.  With snowpack dipping frighteningly low in the Cascades, I feared I may have taken too great advantage of this outstanding arrangement.  Thus, to encourage winter's return, I traveled east to Mazama, WA for some time in the snow, then headed south to California to get in some big hours where it was supposed to be warm and sunny.  Thankfully, this retreat from home was enough to precipitate a return of winter conditions to the PNW.  Snow should be flying again starting in March, conveniently around the time when racing season kicks off and I'll be down in California anyway...

Thanks, weather deities, for being so accommodating.  You can now go back to full winter for the appropriate amount of time.    

First race is US Cup #1 at Bonelli, California.  The organizers at ShoAir Cycling Group, USA Cycling, as well as many sponsors and media supporters, have a very exciting series in store for the Olympic cross country discipline this year.  Be sure to follow all of the action at this blog, on Twitter and Instagram @slaxsonMTB, as well as www.uscup.net, www.usacycling.org, www.cyclingnews.com, www.pinkbike.com, and cog.konaworld.com.    

In the meantime, appreciate what the weather is doing and how it works, and ride your bike! Or do some gardening!

As of the date I pulled this data, the Olympics were at some 3% of average snow water content. Yikes!!

The front of my house at 48.7 degrees North on February 15th, 2015

Mazama, WA near the Goat Wall

Skinny ski cross training weekend at the largest XC ski area in the U.S. in Mazama, WA; an incredible network of nordic trails stewarded by Methow Trails 

Down to San Francisco and Sonoma area for some extra fitness farming

If you like pedaling skinny-tire, curly-bar bikes and getting out of breath and you've never participated in one of the infamous Grasshopper Adventure Series events, then I highly recommend you put one on your list.  

Fitness felt just about right for mid-Feb, not too much, not too little, enough to be amongst the first few to the beer and food at the end of 80 miles and 8,000' of beautiful NorCal roads.  

I ride for Kona Bicycles - www.konaworld.com

Musing on Slippery Roots

The other night I was winding things down, attempting a productive review of the upcoming week’s training sessions and weather forecast, listening to the rain pour down, trying not to imagine how cold and wet the trails were going to be the next day.  The evening’s radio program was showcasing a set of Chopin’s Études.  It was a familiar sound, and, focus drifting away from the deluge outside, a particular piece caught my ear and gave me that goose bump feeling that only a good set of notes can do.  It sent me back to what it was like to practice that kind of music on the piano and, in general, what it's like to practice anything so intricate and expressive. 

Étude is a French word meaning “study”, and in the musical context, denotes a short, technically difficult piece of music designed for practicing a specific musical skill, while also being expressive and beautiful.  It’s not the kind of thing you can just sit down and churn out.  It takes interpretation and practice. Playing an étude is to music what riding a technical section of singletrack is to mountain biking, whereas structured intervals are analogous to the rigid arpeggios and scales compulsory to any student of classical music. Each type of exercise is important in its own right, but it’s playing études that keeps the spirit healthy…which got me thinking on the week’s training plan...      

Was not a cyclist

“Seven times in a row”, my piano teacher used to tell me, “that is how many times you should practice a difficult movement to master a tough set of notes, or to commit a section to memory.” Seven may have been an arbitrary number - I remember it taking many more than seven repetitions to truly master a difficult piece of music.  Yet that bit of advice has stuck with me, because, for me at least, the “seven times in a row” invokes the calculated persistence required to sincerely master something.  And when I look back at those ten years of piano lessons, I’ve realized that music was a tremendous medium though which to absorb (and appreciate) that concept of mastery.     

Thus, for one day’s workout, I thought of riding a trail that would be equivalent to playing an étude, and pedaled out to the Chuckanuts to practice a 1 kilometer section of particularly gnarled, twisted, rooty singletrack seven times in a row.  Each loop was only about 2 kilometers in total, with a steep climb to repeat each round.  The trees were dripping from the night’s rainstorm, and the woods full of dense fog.  I had rolled my way through the trail before, but never actually taken time to study it.  The first time through, the roots and steep roll overs seemed unrelenting.  I was clumsy, dabbing all over the place, fixating on each obstacle, hesitating, slipping everywhere.  Everything was piecemeal and cumbersome.  It was like facing the dense string of notes on a page of music for the first time.  At first they pose a mass of discouraging obstacles, but after enough times through, you grasp the way they go together, and eventually the notes disappear, and it’s just music.  By the fourth time through, I was down to two dabs.  On the fifth time, I cleaned it, and rode it faster than I ever had before.  Rounds six and seven I discovered even smoother, faster lines.

For me, mastery is a relative experience.  It’s not so much about being a “master” of something in general, but rather about the act of mastery, at any scale, whether it’s a single piece of music, or a single trail on a mountain.  I was by no means a great pianist, but I certainly did master a few pieces of music.  Devotion to mastery is, for me at least, the hallmark of sport.  The discipline and inspiration to do something better than you've ever done before is an enjoyable form of that devotion.  Looking back, I’ve come to realize that persistence is one great thing that I learned from studying music.  Persistence, with the reward of mastering a piece of music enough to make the act of playing not just an exercise, but a rich, personal experience.  Eventually you’ve just done something that perhaps you’ve never done before, or in a way you’ve never done before, and the momentum carries you on to the next bit.  Nothing so effortless has felt so satisfying. 

Mastering a trail is parallel to the dimension of mastering a piece of music, or vice versa.  It's not simply about hitting each successive note on the page, but to express, in your own way, the whole of all the notes together, to the point where the notes and the pages disappear, and the motion of your hands across the keys is as much an expression of you as it is the music at hand.

Thirty-six Cups of Coffee

Bike racing is a good thing to cherish, just like slow-roasting with a good cup of coffee in the morning.  The warm silence and calm focus that serves as a welcoming contrast to the challenge which lies ahead.  Both stimulating in their own complementary way, coffee and bike racing. 

But I digress...it doesn't have to be coffee, it can be tea!  And it doesn't have to be bike racing either, it can be something else that prompts a bit of ambition and purpose and fun and good health.  But I'll stick to what I know and share a snapshot of the last seven months of slow-roast mornings and start lines. 

Thirty-six elite start lines, to be precise, from March 1st to September 6th, 2014.  A somewhat modest itinerary by some standards, but always remarkable to roll back the film strip from the last snowy ride at home in March, which didn't feel all that long ago, all the way through sunny season kickoff in Texas, to the hype of the US Cup in California, to the samba at Continental Championships in Brazil, to seven-days of Pennsylvania rocks at TSE, to seven days of British Columbia singletrack at BCBR, to a muddy east-coast National Champs and World Cup campaign, to a start-studded conclusion at the World Championships in Norway...

The hype about the season arrives early, in the form of news headlines and fresh bike parts.  In the midst of winter, these are like reviving, aromatic wafts of fresh roasted coffee beans, sometimes motivating enough to prompt a session on the indoor trainer!

...With visions of the "big time" playing in the mind...

And the days of training and respite in between, well-spent with friends or completely alone, no race numbers in sight, simply enjoying good company and the back yard...

Or the constant dance of continuing to succeed at a "real job", a life completely separate from cycling, yet paradoxically interwoven, working at home or on the road, appreciating how technology has dissolved the walls of the office and allows me to pursue a relatively seamless and balanced approach to "life's work"... 

When I'm back home the bikes are always still hanging on their hooks, and I look out the window, sipping my cup of coffee and wonder about how rainy or how hot it's going to be for the day's training ride, and I appreciate the stability in my life, like strong bike hooks, nice equipment, a good coffee maker...a lifestyle that I value and that I've worked very hard to earn, and which allows me to look forward to a sense of such personal fulfillment.  

Yet the irony is that the closer I feel to that "realm of fulfillment" in my cycling career, the more I realize the need for a divergence in the approach which has brought me here in the first place.  That is, the "have-it-both-ways" approach of a maintaining a conventional professional career alongside and an elite-level athletic career.  Those cups of coffee don't just keep me energized, they keep me thinking.  These days I always think about the concept of the asymptote...continually advancing along a line of achievement towards a "realm of fulfillment", and the effort required to advance along that curve...if it's worth the exponentially increased effort, given everything else...and the time left to realize that advancement at all...and that in the end, it is only a "realm" that is sought, in all its indefinite fuzziness.  

So the buzz settles in and I stop thinking too much about these things and realize the trail will always be there anyway, which is what really matters.  

And I'll keep looking forward to riding spandex-clad with number strapped to my bar and see if I can find out a few more things about that "realm of fulfillment"...

Photo Credit: Kevin McRee

Photo Credit: Mark Thome

Photo Credit: Joonas Vinari

Photo Credit: Dave McElwaine

Photo Credit: Joonas Vinari

Photo Credit: TSE

In the meantime, it's been a refreshing, stimulating season.  Enough coffee to have me addicted to its chemical contents and the experiences it contributes to.