Marriages and Bike Races

Rob and Lauren got married on Saturday! They are classmates from U of IL, and they are among the 36 people who studied abroad in Versailles with me for junior year. It is beyond a little surreal as they are my age!

It was a very short and sweet ceremony. Liz was super nice and drove me, and it so happens our friend from Versailles, Marine is visiting and came to the wedding too. Actually, Liz, Marine and I made a small detour to the Walgreen's on the way there ... Liz had gotten a framed graphic poster for Rob and Lauren, but she hadn't had time to wrap it. We felt super classy walking into the Walgreen's dressed for a wedding the way we were. We felt even classier wrapping the frame in the Walgreen's parking lot before heading to the reception.

The reception was in a beautiful eclectic village of reception type buildings. Our particular building felt like a large mansion with a gorgeous backyard. Hats off to Lauren :)

The best part was being able to catch up with everyone and taking lots of cheesy Versailles reunion type pictures together. Everyone seems so grownup and elegant all of a sudden, and I still feel like an affordable house builder/cyclist/hippie.

Today was the Evanston bike race, which is part of Superweek. I didn't actually race because I don't have a Storck, and non-Storck bikes were not allowed on the race car. In stead, I rode up to Evanston with Bernard, Loren Bo, and Joe to spectate.

Apparently this course is notorious for being quite dangerous. One corner in front of the Burger King is called the BK Stacker because of bottleneck corner. We checked it out while watching the men's 4/5 race, and it looks like they've put in a lot of effort to make it safer, notably pinching the road off with a parked car and cones before the corner as well as using plenty of old mattresses.

I was almost tempted to race just because some shop or team brought a fleet of Tarmacs for neutral support! The plan of action was, steal Liam's ancient, many times crashed Trek for a few laps, crash it out, get a Tarmac, and ride off with it.

Bike Races and Bike Crashes

Bad News First, because it really put a damper on the whole race day for me.

In my first race, I heard the unmistakable metal on asphalt sound of someone crashing behind me. It does happen, and the race goes on. However, it turned out to be bad enough that they called an ambulance and stopped the race early.

I've seen crashes before, but in general, it happened to people I didn't know well, or the crashes weren't too bad, and the people walked away afterwards. It's not like I knew Vanessa that well. I had raced with her once previously. At the starting line yesterday though, she called me out to mention she remembered me from the Half Acre Crits, and that I had beaten her. She said it with a smile that acknowledged my win without negative bitterness and promised challenging and friendly competition in the ensuing race.

Another Tati teammate, Janna, was right behind Vanessa before she crashed. Janna saw Vanessa's front wheel rotate far beyond what it should have, Vanessa went down, and someone right behind Vanessa rode over her. Apparently she had a seizure for a few minutes, with no history of seizures, but then she did try to get up. Someone on her team was either an EMT or a medic, and made her stay lying down until the ambulance came. They stopped the race early to let the ambulance through, and the last I saw, they were opening up the ambulance's back. I really hope she's doing ok.

Anyways. Liz got second in our first race (cat 5/4 race) after staying in a race-long breakaway with Cathy Frampton. I got a slow-leak flat tire which I didn't realize until my back wheel felt oddly shaky on the corners, and I finally borrowed Tim Hermanez's wheel to finish off the race. The race finish was confusing because they stopped it very short, and I don't even know how I fnished.

The second race was cat 3/4 + Masters women, and it turned out to be much more challenging and exciting than the first. The women were clearly more experienced, the pack was dynamic and cohesive and intriguingly didn't break up into smaller ones but rather, chased down all the break aways except the one with 3 laps to go. Anona of Wildcard took off, and I tried to chase her but missed her wheel. The chase group mobilized, but I missed that too after trying to chase solo on the end of the back stretch. A couple of riders caught up to me, said let's chase. I said ok ladies, let's do it. This one woman racer, I don't even remember who anymore, pulled me and Cathy Frampton all through the tail-wind stretch, Cathy Frampton took over on the first half of the windy back stretch, and I just barely made it on to the back of the chase group. I'm not even sure they knew I had made it back. On the last lap, I stayed behind everyone on the windy stretch, took the corner wide, and slingshot past most of them (but never caught the breakaway) to get 5th in the race, 4th in cat 3/4. Now that I think about it, I didn't sprint very intelligently. I probably could have tucked behind someone for a while, but what I ended up doing was madly charge past them in stead, screaming on the top of my lungs, kendo style. Of course. Dumb luck?

The rest of the race, I corner marshalled and ate constantly.

I hope I hear word of Vanessa from Spider Monkey soon.

Fall Fling Race Recap!

Day 1:

We line up at the line for our race, and there were 7 people total, including the 3 people from Tati, so it was a pretty tiny field. It started off pretty slow. I was in front for a bit, but I just hung out because we had things planned for later in the race. Then another girl, Axie (sp?), who's going to be riding for Northwestern pulled us around for a whole lap. About 1.2 laps in, Becky (Turin) attacked, Kenda followed, and Tati chased. Then Becky and Morgan (Kenda) pulled off, leaving Elena exposed, and we weren't sure at that point how good her long distance endurance was, so I pulled in front. Then followed the most annoying part of the race, which is that Katie and I pulled the entire field around for 3/4 a lap each. I mean, these are smart race tactics on everyone's parts (aside from myself and Katie, I suppose), since it was going to come down to a field sprint. I didn't do a good job leading Elena out, and Morgan wound up winning the road race.

It was a slightly disappointing start to the stage races for me, but it was mostly because I still needed to get out of Bike and Build mentality and switch back into race mode at that point.

Day 2:

They combined the Masters women, citizen women, and cat. 4 women altogether in one field, which made things really interesting. It was pretty fast from the start because Pascale (she's 40+ with 3 kids, and she's faster than all of us!) really pushed the pace. Elena basically planned to sit on Morgan's wheel the entire race, and I planned to just get in front of her if she was exposed. It worked out pretty well. Elena got first, Becky (?) got second, third (?), and Morgan got fourth.

The men's 4's race was spectacularly fun to watch. Dan and Jesse both took massive fliers off the front of the pack multiple times during the race, and although Liam didn't end up placing as well as we would have liked, we were all still pretty happy about it because we felt like we controlled the race.

Day 3:

So things weren't looking that great for me, and I thought perhaps I could make a sort of come back with the time trial since that's closer to what I did all summer. We didn't do that many time trial practices, but I focussed on trying to get a negative split on my time. Unfortunately, they shortened the course slightly, so I paced myself incorrectly, and I had leftover energy at the end of it, which really annoyed me (and Katie). My time was 26:38 though, not too bad, and I got third place! Oh, and one of the course marshalls also complimented my orange and brown striped socks, which always makes my day. Morgan, got first, and someone who I didn't know got second (she looks older, but she claims she does triathlons, go figure). Elena had pacing problems, but also her aerobars weren't securely on her bike. Liz did surprisingly well for someone who's been off the bike for about a month, Katie's leg cramped up. Brian Hague got something between 21 and 22 minutes (crazy triathletes!). And Bernard, the only person on our team who actually has a time trial bike, did not show up.

Day 4: FINAL CRIT.

Big day today, was it going to be Morgan standing first place? Elena? We raced a very tactical race today, and played a game of numbers. Elena needed to outsprint Morgan, and someone had to place between them in order to ensure that Elena actually got more points. Amongst the field, only Becky, Katie, Elena, Morgan, and myself were actually contending for omnium placings because everyone else did not race at least 3 races. Basically Morgan was the only one we cared about in terms of placings. Elena again decided to sit on Morgan's wheel, and I sat on Elena's wheel, ready to attack or take over pulls or whatever if necessary to ensure Elena was in good shape to sprint at the end. For the most part, Elena did an awesome job at her plan. At one point though, Marilyn from ABD (in the Masters race) wanted a draft, and actually took Elena's placing, so I did have to move up for a bit. Morgan was taking it pretty easy today too though, we learned later that she was hurting from the time trial yesterday (for good reason! she had an awesome time). When we were turning the final corner, everyone was fanning out a bit: it was Morgan, Becky, Elena all mostly in a line, so I moved around Elena to lead her out. I forgot that you're supposed to move off after leading out for a while, so Elena was yelling at me by the end, but the crazy thing is that Morgan didn't end up out sprinting me. Becky did, turns out. It was cool to actually be able to sprint well at the end of a race though. Thus, overall placings for women were: Elena, Morgan, Becky, myself, and Katie. Awesome job to all the ladies! It was definitely great to have Morgan and Becky in the field: it made Tati work harder for sure :)

AND THEN ... I didn't feel like I had actually gotten a workout during the race, and some people were talking about racing the cat. 4 men's race ... and I said Elena, let's race the cat. 4 men's race! Elena's like, what? are we allowed to? I'm like yea! Let's go! So we did. I got dropped after about 2 laps because it was so blazing off the line, but Elena, that hidden beast, actually hung on for the entire race! She's going to cat up soon, I bet. The funnier part of it, was that Brian Hague, our cat 5 racer, lapped the field, and got first in the 4's race too ..... crazy triathletes ..... People in the crowd were nice though, and most of them kept trying to help me out, like, jump on with the pack! They're coming up behind you! I just laughed inwardly by the time I got lapped 3 times. Whateves. Certainly got my workout. I definitely didn't have the sprints in me to keep up after the corners, which Elena certainly has. And I feel delirious and dead, which is awesome :)

And then tuna salad sandwiches from my mom!

Race Weekend: Fall Fling Part 1

A strange race weekend, at least on my end.

First off, because all of a sudden, I realized that my former Illini Cycling people were competitors in the field. It was odd to change allegiances, but I guess that's what happens in such a small group of people who race. Anyways, I'll give an over all race description once the whole shebang is all over and done with.

Perhaps I should reconsider if I really would be happy in Seattle, since I only saw it during the summer, and I really just don't like grey days at all. Today was rainy in the afternoon, and although I normally have a very steady hand, I ended up having to re trim one of my print copy portfolios 3 times, and that just doesn't happen unless my mind is really wandering elsewhere. Some days are just like that.

Jeong and I had an awesomely long chat commiserating about how hard it is to find a job these days. And the $700 x 10^9 bail out didn't go through causing the Dow Jones to plunge 777+points, so who knows how much harder it's going to be for me now. At least she was able to find a job at the end of it all, and she certainly had a harder time being a foreign student, so I shouldn't complain.

CYCLO-CROSS RACE !!!

IS GOOD FOR THE SOUL !!!

Background info: The first time someone showed me different types of dismounts and mounts for cyclo-cross was yesterday. The first time I ever rode a cross bike was also in fact, yesterday. The first time I tried a barrier was in the neutral lap. TODAY was my first cross race !!!

Picture this: black jersey, black knickers, blue shimano mtb shoes, orange and brown striped knee high socks, solid pink frame bike (no logos). J told me that letting the rest of the field start off early might not be a bad idea since those tended to be hairy, so I ended up passing most people on the first few straightaways. I passed even more people on the tight corners: where most people braked hard, I leaned hard and begged my tires not to lose traction. I got 7th place!!! (Well, technically 6th, but we won't go into that now.)

I crashed going into this one barrier, but it didn't really hurt so much as piss me off. My thought process was simple: person behind catching up. I bounced back fast enough ... there was another barrier that 3 women crossed at the same time, and then we were vying for place right after into a downhill corner turn. Hairy, but turned out alright. At another point, a guy yelled out: "Keep it up, Liz!" And I screamed back, "I'm Sophia!" (There's another girl on Tati who's Korean. We do look similar, especially when we wear sunglasses, so I don't blame the guy.)

It was a fun race to watch. There was this one xXx guy in the men's 3's that raced on a fixed gear! His foot would actually keep moving around the pedal as he came up to the barrier (normally people coast), but he managed to do it very smoothly. In the men's 4's, Brian won his first cross race with a huge gap on the field! I'd like to add that about 20 minutes before the race he asked everyone, hey, so how do I dismount? (He's insanely strong though. He used to be ranked 3rd in his age group for triathlons.) Jeff stuck it out, and Adam hung on and managed to pass a few people in the last sprint. Eric's saddle fell off during the race! but he managed to get back in.

There was a mechanical in the Master's race too: Patrick walked up to us holding his crank arm ...

Cyclo-cross is interestingly more similar to cross country races in that drafting isn't as big of a factor, nor are pack riding tactics. In that respect, I like it a lot, because it's mainly your skill and strength that matter, as opposed to race strategy.

One thing not so great was how hot it was. Around one curve, I yell out, "WATER!!!" to J, so we had some water hand offs. (Thanks, Bernard.) I think I still might have been a bit dehydrated though. Oh well. We didn't have bottle cages because it makes it harder to carry the bikes over the barriers.

GOOD TIMES!

Team Tati - Lunches - Coffee

Biggest update is I may be joining Team Tati ! I know I'd been telling a lot of people on B&B that I wasn't all that interested in races and that really I was more about just riding with people, so it may seem a bit strange that all of a sudden I'm joining a race squad. However, the vibe I get from this team is very different from others. First off, J, the founder, is really actively trying to seriously coach a women's team, which is in fact very unusual. xXx has a women's squad that trains together, but that's about it in Chicago. I used to race for Turin, but I was pretty much alone, meaning I've been on the receiving end of team tactics (NOT FUN). The team also trains together rather than alone. One of the most unique features of the team is that they're trying to be environmentaly friendly. If you think about it, bike races have huge carbon footprints from driving to the races. J is trying to think wholistically though, so he's got organic wool team jerseys, cotton bar tape, corn oil based chain lube, and natural food based riding food. They're even in partnership to try to produce an esspresso machine that runs off of bike trainers. How awesome would that be?

Anyways, I've said that I'm not that competitive when it comes to racing, but honestly, I've never been coached before, and I've also never really had teammates to train with. Even on Illini Cycling, most of us just trained alone. Also, I really like riding with people, and it's a great way to start of the morning. So I'm pretty excited about it.

I rode with Team Tati for the first time today. All of the members were very welcoming and not arrogant since they were mostly beginners and learning about the sport. We went north at a decent pace, stopped by at Metropolis Coffee Shop, and headed back. I'd forgotten my wallet, but J was kind and covered the cost. Thanks, J! I got to talk to quite a few of the people along the way, and they all seem like a really cool bunch of people. I haven't formally joined, but I'm pretty sure I will soon enough. My sprinting is non-existent, my racing is a bit rusty, but my baseline's fine, so I'm sure with some hard work I'll be ok.

Also today, I joined up with ARCH 475 on their site visit to catch up with Amy Kuo, my former roomate, and Professor Hammann. They are designing a children's museum in the South Loop. I'm so jealous: their site, parking lot on State and Harrison, is sooo much better than the site I had to work with (south quad at Chambana). Yes, I should have just sucked it up and dealt with what I had, but I can't help it, I just love cities more than college campuses. I live and breathe cities. Amy said there's a bigger emphasis on sustainability on this project, that they're actually going to design it to be LEED Silver, I think, and they'll submit a sustainability matrix too. Thank you Professor Hammann, for lunch, once again!

And then I caught Logan at Caribou, where we discussed his complex theory about the economic recession, Iraqi war, oil, sustainability, and the world at large over French-press, fair trade coffee. He is very influenced by Guns Germs and Steel, which I'm going to try to read at some point after I finish Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck) and Herodotus' The Histories. Why Herodotus? I remember reading some excerpts back in college freshman year and thinking it was really well written. Thanks Logan, for coffee.

I've gotten to eat lunch with quite a few other people this week. Notably, Alex, Eduardo, and Logan from 4240 Architecture, my former piano teacher Mrs. Siegel and Sarah Constantin, a friend from high school. Conversations for all involved were pretty lively and covered a broad spectrum, from the Olympics in China, Chicago's bid for the Olympics, Obama and Hyde Park, and why I hate the suburbs. It was good to see Sarah doing so well. I was in math team with her, and remember being pretty terrified of her abilites. Thanks Mrs. Siegel for lunch!

Man, reading over this, I'm just a free-loader this week. This is awful! I really need to get a job soon.

Pacing

Monsters on the Midway is an unusually long crit course at 1.25 miles. I didn't do so well because I couldn't hang on to the lead pack after the second preme lap, but I comfort myself with the fact that Lindsay Koren, one of my former Illini Cycling teammates, was there, and she used to do triathlons (ie, she's a beast). She also won the race.

I rode another 30 + miles after the race on Chicago's beautiful lakefront path. Afterwards though, I realized something about my riding style: I don't know how to pace myself for longer rides. I averaged 15mph the entire way, breaking my own wind and everything. I think it's a strange combination of having started off riding with a stronger guy, and then never having enough time to train properly, thus riding really hard whenever I get the chance to. Then again, I never have a problem riding slower with people, so maybe it's not a problem. And then I fell asleep for 3 hours!!! Proof of a great workout.

Also saw Talid Kweli and Cake at the Summer Breeze fest with Wenfei and Diana last night. It was pouring at this outdoor concert! Memorable.

RACE WEEKEND !!!

Short version: I PLACED 2ND BOTH DAYS, AND ILLINOIS PLACED TOP 3 TODAY !!!

Long version:

Road race on a 10 mile loop on Saturday. Somewhat hilly with a short steep climb finish. Halfway through the race, my contact lens flies out and my front and rear derailleurs start skipping like crazy. I'm thinking, great, I'm gonna have to drop out, but then the derailleurs stopped giving me trouble, and I got used to monocular vision. I was in a breakaway with 5 girls (Purdue, Michigan State, Depaul, and one of my Illinois teamates), and we stayed in a nice paceline for awhile until it just became a blob. The Depaul girl passed me up the hill - she certainly was better at them, even though she was pushing ridiculously high gears. (The way Lance Armstrong does it, he spins at a high cadence rather than trying to push high gears, which is the way I've been trying to do it.) Anyways, she placed 1st, I place 2nd, and my teammate, Morgan, got 5th.

I get back to the hotel, Morgan points to my chain and goes, you realize that's broken? I look, and my jaw drops: a link was entirely off the pin and twisted up off the chain. I have no idea how I was able to stay in the race with it like that.

Sunday:

1km criterium race around the Capitol building in Madison. Road had a lot of potholes, unfortunately, and there were quite a few flats along the way, including my teammate Morgan. I couldn't get into my 2 lowest gears on my cassette when in my big ring, which was fine for the crit, even with the uphill portion. (The way John fixed it, he basically just took out two links, making the entire chain shorter.) Morgan and I were either 1st or 2nd for all of the preme laps. Unfortunately for the Depaul girl (Janny?), she didn't have any teamates to come help her off the front of the pack, and she basically pulled us around for the last 5 laps of the race. On the last one, I pulled out and started sprinting all out. I see someone passing me and freak out, until I realize it's BECKY, another one of my teamates! And then I hear Morgan screaming: 1st, 2nd and 3rd !! Come on come on!!! And that's the way it was. Sweet.

Illinois went from having no women's team to conference champs.

No race at Ohio ...

After all that snow, I guess it was pretty optimistic of me (or just ignorant) to think the race wasn't going to be cancelled for Saturday. The race on Sunday's still on, but 10 hours of driving is a lot when you're only goingto be racing one race ...

So I rode trainers for an hour in stead. It's not so bad as I thought it would be, especially now that I have actual trainers and not just rollers. Rollers require a different state of mind in order to stay balanced on them, and I can maintain that for 40 minutes tops.

Looks like I'll be doing the Mizzou and Milwaukee (regionals) for sure. I'm not too sure about the Marian race, the MSU race overlaps with the ESLARP weekend, and the race at Pitt's over Spring Break.

Racing Licence : Training : Fund-raising

The racing license is bought ! And the Spring 2008 Race Season is posted too:

2/23/08	Ohio State Road
2/24/08	Ohio State Crit
3/1/08	DePauw Road
3/2/08	DePauw Crit
3/8/08	Mizzou Road
3/9/08	Lindenwood Crit
3/22/08	Pitt***
3/23/08	CMU*** (Easter)
***Combined ECCC/MWCCC race hosted by ECCC clubs on Easter weekend. MWCCC riders will be eligible for to score conference points, unlike at other non-MWCCC events where points will not count to MWCCC rankings.
3/29/08	Michigan State Univerity Road
3/30/08	University of Michigan Crit & TTT
4/5/08	Marian Crit
4/6/08	Purdue Road and TTT
MWCCC Regionals
4/19/08	University of Wisconsin Milwaukee Road
4/20/08	University of Wisconsin Madison Crit & TTT

I haven't decided which races to do yet, but I definitely want to head out to Ohio. It was my first road race ever and a very memorable experience as a result of there being actual hills.

In terms of training, I'm continuing to ride on trainers parked in front of West Wing episodes about 4 times a week. Does ice-skating count? I went ice-skating today and smiled at little kids who kept falling over. (The really little ones are the most amusing because they don't even have all that far to fall.)

Janice from Gargoyle responded to my query about getting Gargoyle members to help me with the fund-raising bit. She sounded pretty excited about the idea, actually, so I'm feeling pretty encouraged about it all. I plan to start making books today (after my hiatus of a couple of weeks).

And if you feel like getting the catchiest song stuck in your head:

https://netfiles.uiuc.edu/xythoswfs/webui/_xy-26730668_2