For 2012 Cambridge Bicycle will not be sponsoring a racing team.  The shop will continue to focus on providing award winning (Best in Boston 2010 & 2011) service and sales to the Boston and Cambridge cycling community.

I spent most of my Christmas break from graduate school in sunny, beautiful Southern California with my partner Craig.  I promised my teammates and friends tales of epic rides (sans any and all cold weather riding gear) and pictures of the amazing sites. Being a woman of my word and not wanting to disappoint (really, I just want to boast about the amazing place I got to spend what was suppose to be a cold and miserable January), I have prepared this ride report for the multitudes.

I arrived in Santa Barbara just before the New Year skeptical about what was in store for me on the West Coast.  Being accused of being ‘painfully East Coast’ on more than one occasion made me curious if I would even like it ‘out there,’ but I was actually excited about all the things Santa Barbara had to offer.

I mean…what’s not to like?!

My first day there and I was ready to barter my bicycle for a long board, but Craig talked me out of it. He promised that some great riding in the Ynez Mountains was in store for me during my stay, so I decided I’d wait to make such a trade.

The first chance we had during my stay, we took off up Mountain Rd, California State Route 192, which not only offered us some amazing views of the ocean and the Channel Islands,

Pretty special!

but also some interesting construction sites

Wait! Is this house supposed to be crooked?!

and also this interesting take on a mailbox that made me think of my friend Cindy, as she seems to have a penchant for mailboxes

How pissed must this letter carrier be, huh?

The next day, Craig and I took the opportunity again to get in some more great riding. This day he took me in the opposite direction that we went the day before and promised to show me the avocado trees, aplace called ‘Hope Ranch,’ UCSB, and the mesa.

Within the first few minutes of our ride, we saw a rider cross on the opposite side of the road and recognized the kit almost immediately. At first, I thought it was some fanboy rocking the Liquigas kit, but as we passed the rider, he did look pretty legit (almost too legit, HEY HEY!). Craig turned to me and asked “That wasn’t Ted King, was it?!” I replied with, “I don’t know! These euro-pros! THEY ALL LOOK THE SAME.”  (Yo, is that racist?!) Later on that evening, after a little blog reading and twitter tweet reading, we realized it was probably him….

Since Craig is an adult now, he had to return to work the next day, so I was left to venture out on my own for the rest of my stay.  Each day the weather report promised to be a tad hot during mid-day, so I elected to ride in the late afternoons.

This photo was not really necessary to make my point, but I thought I'd make my fellow New Englanders a little jealous....

Not willing to be annoyed and lost in the hills surrounding Santa Barbara, I decided the two hour ride that I was already familiar with on Mountain Rd, looping through Moneticeto, and then to the ocean was just about all I wanted to complete each day on my solo rides, so I set off for the Ynez Mountains again, this time sans any winter riding gear AND a riding/life partner.

My shadow is the only friend I have.

My good friend Dottie is a firm believer in taking pictures to prove that you are were actually someplace (not to mention I fully intended to write this blog report and have a gratuitous amount of amazing photos), so I decided to stop to take some pictures.

Here I am trying to get a picture of a. me, b. the canyon, and c. the ocean all in one photo.

Self portraits with a cell phone camera...how do all these tweens in front of bathroom mirrors make it look so easy?

And then of course, the one all the hipsters love on Instagram: the photo of the bike. I found some real nice flowers to place my bike up next to, figuring it would make the hipstakind real emotive….

A photo to soothe the angst in you.

Deciding I had enough pictures for one day, I continued my ride.

AND THEN ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE.  I freaking SRAM’D my Shimano shifter!

Yep, I see what my problem is.

So, now stuck with no tool set and having a really bad attitude about everything else that went wrong that day, I turned around to go home figuring it was only seven miles away and mostly down hill…but as my chain janked along in-between my chainrings…I grew angrier and angrier as my crank went around.

And then, I got to the Gibralter Road intersection and stopped to think about my options: if I go left, I have a nice, sweeping downhill and can go home and sulk. If I go right and up Gibraltar, I have some climbing to do, but will most likely get a good day in spite of my broken shifter . I could go straight…and well….probably something…but I never looked on a map, so I didn’t really know. So I did what any pissed off cyclists would do: I took the hard road.

Two roads. I took the one less taken.

I guess you could say it didn’t really matter that it was a pretty grueling climb, as I was too busy thinking about my broken shifter…and about my dissertation that I really need to work on so I can graduate….and the potential of not finding a job when I graduate….and the fact that I took too much time off of the bike this Fall…and how my December training was interrupted…and how I really hate the sound of my chain hitting my big ring…and  how I really hate how everyone wears flip flops here in California….and I wondered  how far up this road goes…and oh God, I hope the top is after this next corner….

and Oh! This must be how the 1% lives, stupid jerks….

and Oh Man! The sun is setting and I don’t have any lights for the ride home…

and Hey! Okay, there’s a sign! This must be for something important; I’ll take a picture….

And ZOMG! LOOK AT THE VIEW!

And then finally, I gave up. The inner monologue riddled with anxiety and self-deprecation gave way the startling inner silence that endurance athletes are so familiar with and I gave way to the fact that I would never make it to the top before sunset and would probably barely make it home before then even if I turned around right then, anyways. I stopped just long enough to take a picture of my turn around point for future reference.

(And if interested, this house is listed for sale here.)

And even though I gave up and turned around prematurely, I never did make it back before sunset.

When I got home that night, I asked Craig if he knew how much more I had left  in my climb. He wasn’t that familiar with the area yet, but he looked it up for me when he got to work the next day.

Not. Even. Close....SONUVA!

And then, on my last day in sunny, beautiful Santa Barbara, I took one last ride through the mountains.  And when I made it to the Pacific, I decided I would stick my feet in it (just to say that I did)….

Well, sort of anyways....

And because Dottie wouldn’t believe I was there unless she saw a picture of me, I took one last one for her…

And another last one for the hipsters…

And later on that night, while waiting for our flight at SFO, I decided to look at the data from my rides on the Strava app on my phone.  I was complaining to Craig that I got ‘131 place on one of the segments from my ride, ’ whatever that meant…Craig not really interested in my complaints or what some silly app had to say, snarked back to ask ‘How’d Ted King do?’ to which I replied, ‘OH! He got 8^th!’ I don’t think Craig was expecting a real answer….

Lots’o'writting by Ian Whittle.

Gloucester GP Day 1 – Cat 3 – 64/150:

This race was pretty much a disaster starting the day before.  My trusty Mud2 on the back had seen a lot of miles this fall, and pretty much had no tread in the middle anymore and I was going to stop and pick up a new clincher on the way home from work, but the weather was saying just a few showers, so I figured it would be fine.  People like to ride a jet in the back, right?  Anyway, it rains all night and the course is all slippery mud when I show up.  People are all taking about how this new “improved” course is no longer a grass crit and the mud is “handling” not “power” mud, great, perfect for a guy who does not own a MTB.   I then make the big Verge race rookie mistake of trying to get a pre-ride lap in, which only scares me more as I am all over the course, and end up missing staging.

I weaseled my way up to start mid pack, but as soon as we got on the dirt things went very wrong.  I probably fell about 5 times in the first two laps and the muddy off-camber stuff was basically un-rideable for me.  As you can see starting about 0:40 into this video, it is pretty much un-runable either, based on the way I fall on my ass:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1idWzM–pEc

Eventually I righted the ship at least a little bit, but by that time rivals like Jordan, Rob Hale and Billy Campbell were already pretty well ahead of me and I hear the crowd yelling names like “PJ” and “Connor” and other people on my victims list, which is not a good thing since it means they are right in back of you.  I finally did some damage on the pavement in the last few laps and was at least only moderately pathetic on the mud so I won my epic battle with Matt D’Alessio and at least kept my usual victims behind me (I also totally cut him off on the flyover on the last laps, but that’s racing, right?).

MRC Cyclocross Race – SingleSpeed – 7/37:

Ah, Lancaster, a great course for me, some long straight stuff, fast grass turns and no technical stuff.  Le Mans start was pretty good for guys like me who can run a bit, and since the fast masters guys who win the SS race can’t run it also meant I got to start pretty close to the front of things. There was definitely mayhem though when we caught the women (30 sec head start) after a half lap at the same time that the fast guys who can’t run were driving to the front of the field.  I think I almost put Cindy into the tape, but she did not seem displeased afterward.

I ended up on Aumiller’s wheel, which is good because he starts better than I do, but I have better endurance, so if I can just keep there from being a gap in the early going I have confidence I can take care of business later.  PJ McQuade from MRC passed both of us after a few laps and I followed his wheel, getting me away from Aumiller, always a goal for me.  I then followed PJ around for a while, my turning was a lot better then his, but he has some good watts, so I could never find the moment to get around.  Finally we were lapping a woman right before the flyover in the last lap and he hesitated just a second so I was able to dive bomb them both and take off.  He dropped anchor after that so I did not have to sprint, thankfully.  Ended up being the fastest of the slow guys, which is pretty much my goal in these SS races.

Canton – Cat 3/4 – DNF:

This video is all you really need to see:

http://vimeo.com/31348151

The longer story is that I got a decent start and passed Jordan early on, so things were going well, and I also had Rosey in sight, all good.  I rode that log several times in warm-ups, but ended up at a bad speed right there, to slow to bunny hop and too fast to ride over.  I tried to ride over and the back wheel just hit and endoed me.  I suck at hopping stuff, so I really should have run, even though I would have lost buckets of time.

I ended up opening up a huge gash on the inside of my lip and spent the afternoon in the ER getting stitches, so that was fun.  I also tacoed my new rear tubular that I broke down and purchased after the Gloucester debacle, so that was great as well.

Cycle-Smart International Day 2 – Cat 3 – 78/136:

This race was just a week after Canton, so my lip was still not all that comfortable, but I wanted to try to get some redemption.  The course was fun, but not good for me, there was no long power section whatsoever, and the rooty section up top was killing me since I was still riding a little conservatively.

I actually got a pretty good start and was right behind Hopengarden, but I could tell I was feeling off because I usually never get passed by as many people as I was before the run-up.  Things got worse in the roots, and I was getting passed a ton and losing lots of time.  After a lap or so, I got passed by Rob Hale and Billy, so things were definitely not going very well. This finally got me a little pissed off so I started to ride harder and spent a lap getting back on to the back of their group.  Just when I got there my seat, which I have not touched in a year, slipped on the rooty bumps, so now I was riding with my seat at a BMX 45 degree up angle.  I limped around for a little while to get to the pit, but when I got there I decided it was not comfortable, but ride-able so I rode it for a few more laps until
the end.  I also did this twice in a row in the sandpit:

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150382999570138&set=a.10150382985125138.373779.563840137&type=3&theater

So needless to say, another Verge race, another beatdown.

Eco-Cross – Cat 3/4 – 6/26:

This was a really fun small time event, the course was tight and short, but just a lot of fun, with a lot of different surfaces and conditions.  I did not get a very good start, especially considering my goal was to get a top 5 in this race.  First lap I was riding behind perennial nemesis Billy Campbell and the guy in front of him stuffed it right before the one rooty off-camber corner and took him down, so now I was a least moving on up a little bit. However, the next lap the guy in front of me did the same thing and almost took me out.  I got around OK, but the guy behind me did as well, but then decided for some reason that he needed to stop.  As he did this he put me into the tape and between clearing the tape out of my bars and getting going on a muddy sloped section of the course I lost a ton of time, a bunch of people passed me and the leaders were gone.

The rest of the race I just took a few places back and chased Oscar Jimenez around, who is a much better bike handler then myself.  There were enough little uphill power sections though so I finally passed him and got 6th.

Eco-Cross – 1/2/3 – 18/25:

I was not sure if I wanted to double up, but I figured at least I would have Aumiller and Chip to race with so why not?  My double race start is even more pathetic then my normal start, so I got the reverse [glory]holeshot.  I rode behind Chip for a little while, but when he slowed a bit I was able to get around and start trying to chase my very evenly matched rival Aumiller.  I was doing my best to claw my way back up to him, and after 3 laps or something like that I was not quite on his wheel, but pretty close when I slipped on a slippery, but pretty straight forward, turn and fell on my side.

The gap now was opened again either Matt got a little more energy, or the fall took the wind out of my sails, but either way he started riding further away from me and for the rest of the race I pretty much just rode a steady pace in no-man’s land, worked on my corners and tried to stay out of the way of the people lapping me.  My only real problem is that whenever I double up I start getting cramps during the barriers, and that means I go by embarrassingly slowly right in front of the beer tent, but not much I can do about that.

1:45 of cross pretty much wiped me out, the post race beer and BBQ really hit the spot.  Definitely a fun race, will try to cut work again next year.

Race reports by David Ventura Montes

Because I have been wearing many hats this fall- young attorney, Oakland occupier, tear gas inhaler, arrestee- I haven’t been able to race that much cross besides participating in a weekly cross practice but the past two weekends I went and raced and here is what happened:

The big series in the Bay Area is the Bay Area Superprestige. The first race was at Candlestick Point and I headed out for the Men’s B race. The course was flat with a series of steep run ups and ride ups and a flyover.

We lined up with 102 people and I got a decent not great (5th-6th row) place at the start. When the foghorn -not the best way to start a race- sounded, most of the field took off except the guy directly in front of me. Idiot. I quickly got around and started passing people. On the fly-over I must have passed about 15 people on the first lap.

I was able pass a lot of people on the long flats and then gap them on the ride ups, unfortunately when people were in front of me, these run-ups would end up like the first attached picture. But when no one was in front of me I rode them cleanly. I made my way through to what turned out to be tenth place and by that time ninth place was gone, never to be seen again.

Race Report by Scott Glowa