Burnaby wrap and return to Minnesota

The last night of racing in Burnaby was huge, as far as spectators go. About 600 came through the doors, and most of them took to the infield and beer garden. It was a good time.

Tuft and Bell of Symmetrics were the overall winners, but the racing was only part of the excitement on night 6.

If the strategy of getting lapped in a fashion that would allow Brad to sprint off against Friedman wasn't enough, things got even goofier. There had been talk of finding a rainbow clown wig. A rubber chicken accompanies Brad everywhere that he travels. And inspired by some highly fashionable teens in Starbucks, we decided that some oversized sunglasses would really complete the look. Inquiring with the barista, we found out that there was a costume shop just a block down the street! How lucky are we?

Andrew Armstrong, who stepped it up from the A's omnium to race with Brad when I had to abandon was warned that there would be some shenanigans going on, but that was it. No specifics. So when Brad pulled the rubber chicken out of his jersey in the first madison and tried to hand it off to Kirk O'Bee (he didn't accept), no one quite knew what to expect. Jeremy Storie, the organizer and announcer, took it all in stride, and actually seemed pleased and amused.

It probably would have been a good idea to clue Andrew in on what Brad was about to do. But where's the fun in that?

Bothered with nagging knee problems, Brad decided to call it a night after the first race. But what to do with the clown wig and giant sunglasses? Serendipity in finding them could not be denied, so despite the possibility of causing further bodily harm, he took the to rail, decked out in all his finery, with the intention of being the first out in the elimination. Well, he actually (and I believe accidently) was the second eliminated, but no one could match his mad style.

Brad taking to to rail for the elimination

This was probably the most educational few hours I've ever had about bike racing. The lesson: Don't take it so seriously. If you stop having fun with it, bike racing just sucks. You work your ass off, don't make squat, live out of a suitcase, and are usually either injured or recovering from an injury. If you can't throw on a rainbow wig and put on a show every now and then, it's probably not worth it.

That's the look of a true champion. And notice how good the wig and glasses look with the LA Lighting jersey. Just like it was meant to be!

I'd go as far as to say this could be applied to most jobs. If I ever have a job where I would be fired for showing up in oversized novelty sunglasses, I probably don't want to be working there. Try it. See what your boss and coworkers say. I'm curious to hear what happens.

Sunday was uneventful travel, save for a painful arm and lost luggage, but everything turned up the following night. I also went to the doctor and had a bunch of blood drained out of my arm. I don't know why the Canadian doctors were so reluctant to do this; the doctor here told me they could have gotten much more out, alleviated almost all of the swelling, and vastly sped up the recovery if they had drained it within the first 24 hours. Thanks for nothing, Canadian health care.

Check out the latest Bike Throw podcast, where I dropped in Tuesday morning to talk about the race. It was pretty fun.

End of the line

I crashed in the first madison last night. Not entirely sure what happened. In any case, I landed on my right elbow and skinned up my right hip. We kept racing, but near the end of the 200 lap madison that closed the night, Brad noticed that my elbow was getting pretty swollen.

After a night of hemming, hawing, and ultimately balking at the $700 it would cost just to get in the door of the ER, I'm done racing here. This is too much, and I don't want to cause any further damage to my arm before leaving for Patagonia in a couple weeks. Oh yeah, I also toasted my frame, denting in the right seat stay in two places, which respaced the rear dropout by adding about 4 mm. Not good.

Sorry everyone, but I'm out.

Burnaby Day 3: Cracked

Tonight was somewhat uneventful, as far as a night of madison racing can go, so I'll just sum up the highlights.

1. Suffer through the first madison. Everyone is a bit ragged by the third day.
2. Find a splinter in what I had thought was just a cut on my hip. Pull it out. Realize it's disturbingly big to have been in me for 2 days.
3. Be on the receiving end of multiple Dave McCook head-butts. You get these for the simple reason of "You were there."
4. Crack hard with 40-some laps to go in the last madison. Not just crack. Blow sky high.

The splinter I found in my hip tonight, with a pop tab for scale. Sleeping on my side should be more pleasant now.

Brad sheparded me in after I blew in the last race. It was ugly. He was doing doubles, we were letting ourselves drift back to whatever next group was behind us when we got gapped, and I still was wondering which would happen first: Lungs burst, legs cramp and lock up, or pass out. Turns it was none of these, but rather "Race mercifully ends."

Staying warm between races. Super Rookie will be glad to see that his hero Svein Tuft is also pictured here, along with Zach Bell.

Tomorrow is going to really hurt. Especially the 200 lap madison. If anyone out there is wondering, 5 weeks on the rollers is not a particularly good way to prepare for a race like this.

Burnaby Day 2: Back in Action

After getting knocked silly on the first night, I was back for more on the second. There was a slightly shorter set of races tonight with 2 madisons and an elimination for me, and a points race for Brad. My body seems to have come out of the crash fairly well, and while I still had something of a headache, the only nagging issues on the bike were some pain below my ribs, a bruise under my right knee, and a stiff neck. Considering how hard I went down, it's not too bad.

In the first chase (100 laps, sprints every 10) the power was full on. Symmetrics and Slipstream were still pounding away in the big gears (93+), while most of the rest of us were in either an 88 or a 90. This pretty much set the tone for the rest of the night. I went up to a 90, which seemed to help. Any bigger and I would have gotten bogged down, but it was still an improvement. Brad elected to stay in his 88 and spin like a madman. Seeing as we started yesterday at 15 laps down and in last place, we didn't really have anything we needed to defend. With that in mind, a little cadence work at the expense of race results (which are far gone at this point anyways) seems prudent.

We rode better on the whole last night. Our exchanges were smoother and more powerful, we took some sprint points, and lost few laps. Oh, we didn't crash either, which made me happy. Despite the crash, I felt far better last night than I did on the first night. Traveling and not getting to ride the day before a race really seems to mess me up.

Now my arms are achy from throwing and my legs are tired, but if that's the worst, I consider it lucky. There were a few more crashes last night, and Friedman and Williams took quite the trip to the ground, but they're both back up and riding quickly. There was also a really funny shouting match between a pair of riders after the crash. It lasted a couple laps, and even had them riding next to each other, one hand off the bars gesturing, and all the while cursing a blue streak that would have embarrassed a pirate. I love bike racing. We even managed to climb to 10th (out of 12) in the standings! Time for an amazing comeback.

Burnaby Day 1, or KTFO

After a few delays, we made it to Vancouver, met up with Brad and our hosts, the Popes, and got settled in. Throughout the day, my right eye started to get pretty messed up. A week ago I blew a blood vessel in it during training, but after a few days it seemed to have gotten better. Then suddenly it was bright red, swollen, and painful. We made a trip to a clinic yesterday, I found out that it had become infected, and now have a regime of anti-inflammatory drops to get it back to normal. Oh yeah, and this means I can't wear my contact lens in that eye for 5 days, which means I can really only see out of my left.

On to the velodrome. The track here in Burnaby is a funny thing. It's construction was started and nearly completed when the builder ran out of money. After some wrangling, it's now owned by a volleyball club who has courts in the middle, leased by the velodrome, and the upper segments (those parts that couldn't be completed the first time around) are plywood, while the lower segments are slats. As such, from approximately the blue line down the track is very smooth. From the blue line up, well, not so much.

The racing began looking very promising. The first event was a team flying 200. I threw Brad in, and despite almost being launched into the rail by the bumps in the track as he reached for my hand, he smoked the effort, turning an 11.31. Our time stood until the last team, Bell and Tuft, turned an 11.1. Second place: not a bad way to start out.

Next up was the elimination, but with a twist. Everyone rode, but there were no exchanges, and if your partner was eliminated, so were you. Or in our case, when I was eliminated, so was Brad. I really wasn't feeling the love, and we finished somewhere mid-pack. Zach Bell won the final sprint, and the pattern for the night was established.

Our third event was a 100 lap madison. I was suffering like never before. More times than I care to remember, I got a repeat taste of lunch, and the blurriness I felt was due to much more than my useless right eye. By the time it finished, we had lost about 3 laps. There was a whole bunch of suffering going on. I thought I was going to cough myself inside-out. Oh yeah, Bell and Tuft won.

The final event of the night was a 160 lap madison. Things were starting to feel a bit better, until the rider in front of me decided it would be a great idea to back pedal and swing up track. Never mind that my front wheel was there. The thing about getting your front wheel crossed up in a turn is like this: If you try to steer away from it, it leans you to far down the track, and will generally make you crash. If you steer into it, your wheel stops, your body keeps going down track, and you crash. The most you can hope for is that who ever is in front of you decides to move slightly down track. That did not happen.

It went a little something like this:
Riding into the turn 2 around the blue line.
Rider ahead dumps his speed and swings up.
10m+ of wheel rubbing.
[scene missing]
Crumpled on the infield surrounded by people.

I've got some burns on my arm and a few smaller cuts and bruises, but the biggest problem was that I got knocked out cold. My helmet even has some nice skid-burns on it to accompany the two big cracks it now has.

Looks like I'm going to be needing a new helmet.

My side between ribs and my hip is really sore, but I think I lucked out in that I've once again managed to avoid any broken bones. Unfortunately I was knocked so silly by the crash that I kept almost falling over when I tried to stand up. There was no way I could get back into the race, which means Brad got the roughest end of this deal. He had to take on 143 laps solo. I can't believe he did it. In the first race I was struggling doing normal exchanges. Doing that much on your own is amazing. Hats off to him for keeping us in the event. I certainly didn't have anything to contribute.

I really hope I can put in a better showing tonight. In one respect, it was a lucky crash in that my head took the most of the impact. The rest of my body is mostly alright. I owe Brad a big ride tonight after his super-human effort yesterday.

Burnaby Plans

Next Sunday I'm off to Vancouver for the Burnaby 6-day. As has been the case through most of this season, I've had trouble pinning down a partner. It's happened this way in Portland, T-Town (twice), LA, Forest City, and to a lesser extent the planning to go to Europe. That it happened for Burnaby shouldn't have been much of a surprise.

At First Luke Winger and I were going to ride. But he skipped town and went to Argentina. Can't really blame him there. Then a string of others, Cody O'Reilly, Kenny Williams, Vince DeJong, David Byer, and others. Everyone either already had a partner or wasn't able to go.

Finally the race organizer, Jeremy, decided to pair me with a pretty powerful local rider. He has a fair collection of credentials, to put it mildly. A medal from Canadian elite nationals, and a master's world championship in the points race. I may not have ever met him before, but he was clearly a very capable rider.

Then another change. Things have shifted again, and now I'm partnered with Brad Huff.

If this is any indication, Burnaby is going to be awesome.

He's damn fast. I'm going to need to step it up for this one. Especially after seeing the start list. This is going to rock.

Moving On

In their ongoing attempt to eschew journalistic credibility, Bikethrow.com and Super-Rookie* have let the cat (or cats) out of the bag, but not without first kicking it around a bit, painting it a different color, and generally confusing the hell out of it.

So with that in mind, here's how things are really going to go down in the next few months:

1. Despite what you may have heard on BTDC, there will be no Tasmanian Xmas Carnivals for me. I do plan on racing the Burnaby 6-day in Vancouver over New Years though. Super-Rookie will be excited to learn that his favorite ex-hobo, Svein Tuft, should be there.

2. Following that, I will be going to sherpa school in Patagonia. 3 months of walking and paddling around one of the wildest places on Earth, the MCF blogosphere not withstanding.

3. When I get back in April, I plan to move out to Colorado Springs to race and train with some of the Cody Racing guys, but just what the team structure will be is unknown. I might even get to stay with Speedfix out there. We'll see.

So there you have it.

*I can't vouch for Homme's journalistic standards. He may well be a mere cog in the mass-media machine Super-Rookie is endeavoring to build.

Schooled

About a month ago Adrian and I found ourselves stumbling around the Schipol Airport in Amsterdam. A few hours later and we were unwillingly thrown into a race at Alkmaar.

We got rocked. We chalked most of it up to jet lag and inexperience with the Euro racing style. Then yesterday I found this. Jens Mouris is the local who got paired up with Tom Murray that night. Tom later said that all through the madison Jens was going to the front and hammering the pace, then telling Tom that he had to go faster. I guess that's what you do when you win World Cups by taking two laps on the field.

Mouris and Schep on their way to winning the madison at the Sydney World Cup this weekend.

The really crazy thing? Tom and Jens didn't win that race. The Australian duo did. Then they went on to crush everyone at the Dortmund Talent Cup.

The Aussies, Miles Oldman and Leigh Howard, on their way to winning the madison at Alkmaar. I think one of them is still a junior, and the other is only 18 or 19. Oh yeah, and they have something like 6 junior world championships between them.

I'd venture a guess that we got blown out that night for far more significant reasons than sleep deprivation.

The Gent Story

Time to catch up, it's been a while. Everything worked out leaving Geneva, getting to Brussels, and on to Gent. I met up with a pretty substantial Blaine contingent, including my parents, Bob, Bill Nicholson, Dave Thimeson, Lionel Space and his wife Noel. All in all we numbered 11 spectators with NSC connections. I was surprised.

Let me state without further hesitation just how great it is to be a cyclist in Belgium. You walk out of the train station in Gent and are greeted by a public square that doubles as sea of bicycle parking. Down the boulevards of the streets that radiate from the square is an even more expansive tangle of bikes. Some have clearly been there for years, and won't be removed until they rust through, but the vast majority are ridden regularly. It was a nice way to be welcomed to the city.

As for the racing. Gent was quite a bit different that either Dortmund or Munich. The German 6-days are known for being a huge party, with the racing occasionally taking on a supporting role to the live music, discotheques, light shows, and other acts. The halls are huge, and lighting verges on seizure inducing, and everything is a polished show.

Gent disposes with all that an focuses purely on the racing. No light show. No temporary discotheque, VIP dining on the infield, or teenie-bopper musical acts. Dave Wiswell summed it up pretty well, saying that Gent is more like traditional 6-days, "all bike racing and beer drinking." And it has plenty of those two things. The stadium in Citadel Park is far smaller than Westfallenhallen in Dortmund, or Olympiahalle in Munich, but it is packed. The seats are filled, and the infield is jammed to capacity. Everyone is there to watch the racing, and go crazy for it.

The fanaticism of the Belgian locals was further fueled by the rivalry that immediately developed between the teams of current World Champs Bruno Risi and Franco Marvulli and the local favorite Iljo Keisse riding with Robert Bartko. Perhaps the biggest surprise was the riding of the British team, Bradley Wiggins and Mark Cavendish, who roundly sucked for the first few days. They lost 10 laps in the first day, and landed in second to last. The second night saw them lose another 7+ laps. The pair finally started to come to life as the week wound down, but they were generally lackluster at best, and disappointing at worst.

I had previously set out the goal of keeping track of all the people I met with Bob in Gent. Some of you pointed out the futility of this task. You were right. I abandoned that about half and hour into the first night.

The Talent Cup saw a bit of drama go down on the American side of things. On the second night, East and Carroll got tangled in an exchange, and Austin went down, dislocating something around his shoulder (maybe it was his collarbone) in the process. Guy rode the third night alone, going in and out pretty much whenever he felt like it, and I think he actually came off the track for the final 15 laps or so. Luckily the officials took pity on him, and didn't take him down any more laps. It was pretty funny. In a simultaneously disappointing and convenient twist of fate, Dave Wiswell, who had been racing sick, withdrew after the third night, so Jackie and Guy were paired for the last two nights. The method that is used to settle the laps in this situation was pretty clever: the laps lost by the two teams are averaged, and then another is tacked onto the total to give the standing of the composite team. I'm not sure how the points are dealt with, but the laps system seems like a pretty good one. On the last night Guy and Jackie made the right move at the right time, taking a lap early in the race while the top three teams shadow boxed with one another. A flurry of attacks in the second half put them on the rivet, but they gutted it out, stuck the good wheels, bridged when they had to, and retained their lead to win the night. It was awesome, and a really good way for the two of them to end what had initially looked to be a disappointing and ill-fated start to the race.

In the pro field it was the local star who triumphed, as Keisse and Bartko took a last-minute lap on Risi and Marvulli to vault into the lead. The crowd went crazy. I'm convinced that there's no place like Gent for this. Everyone was on the feet, cheering and clapping. Bill and Dave remarked that they've never seen any sporting event where the crowd was so enthralled with what was going on, and I completely agree with them. The intensity didn't end with the racing though. The majority of the fans stayed around to watch the awards ceremony afterwards, and the party was still going strong at the bar owned by Iljo's father a full 8 hours later, and went long into the night. If he wasn't before, Iljo Keisse can now be confirmed as Belgian royalty.

Again, there's no better place to be a bike racer than Belgium. When I arrived in Brussels, the immigration official who processed me asked where I was going, and when I replied "Gent," he immediately knew why. He started asking me questions about racing, if I had met Keisse, and commented that Cavendish had come through just 15 minutes earlier. The guy working next to him jumped into the conversation too, and were content to talk about the 6's with me for a good 5 minutes while the line behind me (and the one next to be, consequently) were left waiting. What a great place.

Photo Catch-up

Adrian throwing me in at Dortmund

Me being unwillingly thrown in for more suffering in Munich

Finally, some recovery

The spectacle in Munich

Derny racing in Geneva. It was much more of an event for the racers here than in Munich or Dortmund, where the spectators clearly came first.

I'm at the Geneva Airport now, waiting to fly to Brussels. From there it's up to Gent. My racing is done for a while, and I'm looking forward to getting the opportunity to take in a 6-day as a spectator instead of a racer, and to follow Bob around and see him in his true element. It's going to be awesome. Stay tuned for updates on the racing and a running list of all the people Bob knows.

3 Jours d'Genéve: Final Wrap

The other Americans had a mixed time with the derny racing. None of us had ever done it before. Wiswell had a painful time at the hands of an inexperienced driver who wasn't very smooth and kept dropping him by surging the pace. Realizing how important the driver was, he went up to Jean-Jacque after his race and insisted that he drive for Jackie. Adrian and Jackie hung at the front for most of their race, but eventually one of the other leaders, Bruno Menzi attacked off the front and gained a lap. At the finish, another rider came around them, putting Jackie and Adrian in 3rd and 4th respectively.

I was pretty blown after the derny racing. Not surprisingly, a long 60 km/h motorpacing session is not a good way to start a set of races. My points race was an picture of suffering, and did us little good in points. The Swiss riders were beginning to team up against David and I, so we joined forces and did what we could while severely down on numbers. Adrian rocked out in his race though, and took a lap with a small group in addition to picking up a bunch of sprint points.

The elimination saw me pip Jackie, and David in turn pip me. Confusion ensued, as our numbers and colors were called out in French, and David thought that they had called him out. He was protesting, and I was trying to tell him that I had been eliminated, and that that was what the officials had said. A moment later it all made sense, we realized that he was still in the race, and I did what little I could to push him back towards the dwindling pack. The good thing is that by being at the rail and a little ways back, David had a sweet run at the back of the pack and parlayed it into a 3rd or 4th place finish.

The final madison of the 3-day had its share of confusion as well. No one bothered to tell us that there were no sprints in this race. The madison on day 2 had 3 sprints; day 3 had only the finish. In a manner reminiscent of the start of the derny race, we rolled off the rail, and I was left wondering why the neutral lap was so fast. Then I was wondering why there were 2 teams half a lap up. I guess it's acceptable here to forego a neutral lap if someone wants to attack off rail. Personally, I think it's crap. In every other race the officials were sticklers about the group being together before the race was allowed to start. Why would they change it now, without so much as telling us?

We ultimately brought the escapees back, no one managed to take a lap, and Wiswell and I went one two in the nonexistent sprint at 60 to go. Somewhere near the end, I glanced behind me, got caught under and exchange, which forced me under a second exchange that happened a moment later, just ahead in the line. It was ugly. There was a fair dose of bumping, the sound of bikes colliding, and some sliding around on the apron, but no one crashed. It was amazing. Jackie summed it up perfectly in describing it as "the super-submarine." Embarrassing... Coming to the finish, Jackie put in a perfect attack that was reminiscent of his scratch race win on the first night to take 3rd on the line.

When everything was tallied up, our two teams were tied. We were both two laps down, and both had 296 points. The decider? The final sprint in the madison. Simes and Wiswell took 4th, Adrian and I pulled in 5th. Not bad, and it was one hell of a race.

Derny Action

It turns out derny racing isn't so hard. Or at least the concept is simple. It's like drafting Big Ben, but not quite as effective. I'll give you the quick run-down on strategy:

1. Drink lots of espresso. Way more than you think is reasonable. I'm beginning to realize this applies to most forms of bike racing in Europe.
2. Put on the largest gear you've ever raced. In this case, a 52 x 14. Quite a shock to the legs after racing a 49 x 15 for everything else.
3. Stand on the homestretch until someone rambling on in French points to you, then points to a spot on the fence. Go there.
4. Try to get your massive gear turning, and get behind your respective derny driver in the line.
5. Hold on for dear life, occassionally shouting "Allez!"
6. 90 laps laters, try to figure out what just happened.

In my case, what happened was that I had fortune on my side. I got one of the more rotund drivers, who also happens to drive in the pro 6-days. Not a bad draw. Going against my luck was that I started second to last, which means that when everyone is rolling onto the track, with 10+ riders and motors, you're more than half a lap down on the leader. This is not where you want to start on a 167 meter track. Almost immediately I could see across the turns that a separation was happening, but a few allez's later, Jean-Jacque had me across the gap. From then on, he just did his thing, and I did mine. His thing was navigating through the other riders, picking the speed, and deciding the strategy. My thing was counting down the laps and wondering at what he was doing. I'm still not entirely sure, but I do know we lapped the field, and I think the number of fingers he would occasionally show me had something to do with how much he was going to speed up to pass someone.

Another thing about derny racing is that on a track this small, the fastest line isn't in the pole lane, but somewhere just below the blue. This means the riders who are going slower, getting gapped by their drivers, or just generally suffering end up at the bottom, tempo goes on in the middle, and those of us unfortunate enough to have a driver intent on passing are doing motor-paced hill repeats at the rail.

When we finally finished, Jean-Jacque was clearly pleased. Physical state not withstanding, I was pretty happy too. We had passed a bunch of people, and more than that, I was still alive. It turns out I took second, which made me even happier. Jean-Jacque, on the other hand, was suddenly pissed. He thought we had won. Rene Shibely, one of the riders who had started at the front attacked while the race was still neutral and bridged the 50 or so meters to the back forming field and taking a lap, which the officials (rather dubiously) awarded to him. The more I think about it, the more I feel robbed. I took a lap from the tail end of the group, passed everyone a second time, and finished at the front, while Shibely snuck a lap before the race actually started, lapped again behind me, then started to blow at the finish and drop off the pack while I was accelerating away. Not cool. I missed out on picking up my first Euro win because of that. Granted that a derny race is a bit of an anomaly, a win is a win, and I'll take it.

3 Jours d'Geneve: Day 2 Wrap, or Think Like A Monkey

Racing really came around for me today, and I think I know why. Adrian passed on a bit of sage advice before my points race. To summarize: Think like a monkey. Don't take any shit, be the one to throw it. Not only is the mental image priceless, but it seems pretty apt as well.

Day 2 finished out strong with the madison. Things blew apart early. The race was only 15 km long, so it was full-on from the gun. The first attack came from Jackie only a few laps into the race, and there wasn't a real pack again until about the halfway point. Even then, it only lasted maybe 10 laps before it all splintered again.

Things got so messy that I honestly don't know what happened, except that we picked up third place in the second sprint (of 3) and won the finish. We took a bunch of laps on a lot of the teams, and from what I can tell, only one team took a lap on us. As it turns out, we lost two laps to the leaders, and 3 teams when up laps on us. It was a surprise to me. The funny thing is that there is one team that finished behind us on points, but equal on laps that I am certain we lapped more than once. Perhaps the exchange rate is coming into play here too.

The final scoring put Adrian and I in fourth for the madison, with Simes and Wiswell right behind us in fifth. On the day, we took fourth, landing in fifth in the overall classification, and Jackie and Dave are just ahead of us in fourth overall.

Tomorrow we have derny racing. Awesome? Wait. No, terrifying is more like it. All I know is that I need a huge gear and to yell either "allez" or "ho" for faster and slower, respectively. Do anyone out there have any more derny racing advice for me?

3 Jours d'Geneve: Points and Keirin

By the lunch break, Simes and Wiswell had moved up the standings into 3rd, while Adrian and I picked it up and moved into 5th. Our afternoon session started out with a points race for Dave and I, and it seems like I've finally gotten my racing to come around. I won the first couple sprints, and factored into all but one, finishing up in second. Someone powered off the front after a sprint midway through the race, and managed to take a lap, pushing me out for the win. Oh well, it's still an improvement.

The keirins here are a mess. Maybe it's that Europeans just don't know how they work, or maybe they just don't really care at this event, but it was nothing like it should be. First off, you don't have holders, and you don't draw for starting position. Rather, they assign you a start spot, and have you hold onto the fence in the infield, in the order they want you to roll of in. After that the derny pulls around, and everyone rides up onto it, but this is done at or above the red line. Another thing I should mention is that you don't necessarily ride up to the wheel of the derny right away. The Donimator would love it here: apparently it's kosher to take the motor, then half a lap later fade off by 30 meters, jockey for position, then sprint back up to it. Once you hit 500 meters to go, the motors pulls off. Except that it pulls off going 38 km/h rather than 50 km/h. Little bit of a discrepancy there.

However weird the keirins are here, Adrian, Jackie and I all finished third in our respective heats, with Dave managing a second place finish in his.

The last event of the day is the madison, coming up soon.

3 Jours d'Geneve: Catch Up

Things finished up late last night, and racing started again early this morning, so I passed on the post-elimination update. Suffice to say I rode a spectacularly poor race, got swallowed up and spit out the back, and pulled early. Oops. Adrian faired pretty well, but again the night for the Americans was topped by Simes pulling off 6th. He rode a very respectable set of races, and definitely put in the best results of the Americans. Simes and Wiswell ended the night in 4th, while Adrian and I dropped to a tie for 6th, 1 point behind 5th.

Adrian and I are CouchSurfing with a really nice guy named Florent who lives only 2 km from the track, and not only is it convenient, but he's a masseur, and offered to give us free massages last night. Awesome. He says that if he wasn't working this weekend, he would come to the track with us and give us massages between races. What a great guy. Yet again, CouchSurfing comes up with the best.

Back to racing. After a breakfast at the track of bread, croissants, and triple shots of espresso that are also used for degreasing engines and stripping the paint off boat hulls, the racing got under way. Adrian pulled off a very nice ride in the points race (red numbers only) taking 4th, only finishing behind the 3 riders who gained a lap. Simes looked a bit toasted from his stellar performance yesterday, but still pulled out a respectable finish. Wiswell and I needed to wait for a couple hours until our first race: an elimination with all rider competing.

Adrian wasn't really feeling it, nor were Wiswell and Simes, but I finally pulled myself together for a decent ride, finishing 5th. Not great, but at least it garnered up some good points against the other teams around us in the standings. We've got a lunch break now, then it's back to racing, with Wiswell and I (and the other black numbers) taking our shot at a points race, followed by a set of keirins, and finally ending the day with a madison.

A funny thing about the lunch. The organizers provided sandwiches and Coke for only 2 Francs (about $1:75. Cheap!) but gave them to us Americans on the house. I imagine their thinking went something like this (only in French):

You know those dirt-bagging Americans, the ones who are living in the bike cage and sleeping on a stranger's couch rather than the bomb shelter dorms to save 10 Francs per night? I bet they could use a cheap lunch.

And we were more than happy to eat it.

3 Jours d'Geneve Live Update: Scratch Race

Our second night of the race was a 36 lap scratch race, all riders together (12 teams, so 24 total). Things started out quick and strung out, with Adrian and I rotating at the front, chopping back down into the line the way we learned in Dortmund and Munich. People seem to be a lot less aggressive here, so it was a bit easier to force your way back in. Anyway, Adrian attacked, and I was on his wheel, so I just sat at the front and blocked things up for a few laps. Picture, if you will, the "Great Wall of LGR" that has become a fixture of Blaine cat. 1/2 racing. Now picture me trying to do that all on my own. Not too successful. Someone caught on, and it was only a matter of time until Adrian was swept up. Things were nearing the end, so there were a handful of more futile stabs, but ultimately it came down to the final sprint.

I had drifted towards the back, but found Jackie Simes' wheel there, and knowing his pack sprinting prowess, figured it would be a good one to tack onto. He was picking his way over the top, so I felt pretty good about my choice. True to form, he attacked over the top at the perfect time (about 3 to go, I believe), right as things bunched up. I was pinched off his wheel, and while Jackie went on to win, all I could scrape together was 6th. Not too bad. Not too good. Jackie, reached for comment after the race, was rather passe about the whole thing, like he does it all the time. The consummate professional...

Next up: Elimination

3 Jours d'Geneve Live Updates: Points Race

Alright, we survived the first 24 hours in Geneva. Not only that, we started racing. Unlike the UIV Cups, where we were the first event, finished up, and then the pros were on, here we're racing in the Open Category, and are interspersed, along with juniors, cadets, and women, among the pro schedule. So this means we have lots of down time. Our first race was finished by 6:45. We don't go on again until 9:30 for a short scratch race, and then again at 10:30 for an elimination. This is going to be a long night, so here come some live updates to fill the time.

Vel d'Hiv is only 167 meters, so they split our 80 lap points opener into two groups. Adrian had the first 40, then a few neutral laps to change, and I took the second 40. We both got into breakaways in our respective races, with Adrian taking second twice and fourth once (he almost lapped the field, but was gapped off by the rider in front of him throwing in the towel) and I won a sprint while in the break, but didn't take any more points. As it stacks out, we're sitting in fifth right now, just behind the other American team of Simes and Wiswell.

The dry air is seriously compounding my cold and cough, so we'll see how the rest of the night plays out. Stay tuned for the scratch race update to follow.

A (6) Day in the Life of Brian

8:00 AM

Wake up, roll out of bed

8:05 AM
Wander out in search of breakfast. Try to figure out where you are. Something about a rowing center...

8:06 AM
They look like they know where they're going. Follow them to food.

8:07 AM
Success. Breakfast is in here.

8:20 AM
Look out the window at this thing. Turns out this was the venue for the rowing portion of the 1972 Olympic Games. The summer games. Maybe that's why it's so damn cold in the dorms.

10:00 AM
Round up every warm piece of cycling clothing you own. Dawdle because you don't want to go ride in the cold.

10:15 AM
2 km of canal, with smooth, flat service roads on either side. Perfect to spin out on.

10:30 AM
Remember the cold? Well now it's raining too. Shouldn't have waited so long to ride, moron.

10:45 AM
It's still raining, and you're still riding.

11:00 AM
Lap after lap after lap.

11:10 AM

Back to the compound. Quite a step down from the Hilton in Dortmund, but at least they give us all our meals.

11:15 AM
Survived the ride. Take a shower, and go find lunch.

12:05 PM
Lunch. Didn't I say something about mystery meat before?

12:45 PM

Sit around. Get used to this, as you'll be doing a lot of it on race days.

3:30 PM
Arrive at the track

4:00 PM
Have a look at the track itself. Still not open. Consider the possibility of warming up in the metal sphere those motorcycle nutcases ride in.

5:00 PM
Hang out in the room they give the UIV Talent Cup racers before the riders' meeting. This meeting will mean almost nothing to you, as 75-80% of the speaking will be in German, with the English translation making up the remaining 20-25%. Spend these 30 minutes wondering what else you didn't hear. On thing you do pick up: They've decided to make the race U-26 rather than U-25. Someone who was too old must have wanted to race. Yeah, rules, whatever.

5:45 PM
Warm up on the track. Wear the TROY jersey so that Super-Rookie can't complain. Try to be enthusiatic about this. 240 laps of all out madison looms in your immediate future. It will hurt. Reconcile yourself with this fact.

8:15 PM
Eat in the Fahrraderkantina after the race. You don't have any say in what you get, but it's free, and you're hungry. Eat it anyways, burned soup or not.

9:15 PM
Load up the van for the trip back to the compound.

9:25 PM
Distract the person driving your van down the Autobahn with flash photography. Fall asleep shortly after.

Dortmund Day 3

Well it ended last night for us, as Adrian and I concluded our 3 nights of racing in Dortmund. After out lackluster performance on day 2, we scrapped back together for a decent ride on day 3. Still not quite up to par with our first night, but not too bad. We lost one lap to the field, and the Dutch team took a lap on everyone else, so we ended the night officially at 2 laps down. The Aussies won, and no one was surprised.

Hanging out before the start of day 3.

When the points from each night were tallied up, Adrian and I pulled off 10th. Again, not to good, but really not that bad for my first try. One unfortunate thing is that even though we had such a terrible day on day 2, we would have actually finished one spot higher had the race been scored normally, with laps and points carrying over from one night to the next. As it happened, we finished a lap ahead of the 9th place team. Oh well, rules are rules.

Tom and Adrian.

Despite a few close calls, we managed to avoid hitting the ground this weekend. For example, last night the Polish team decided to chop down and go under an exchange, and to take my front wheel with them, but somehow it all stayed upright. A few other teams weren't so lucky, but at least Adrian and I didn't crash.

Average speed for the races was 52-53 km/h. 40 km per night, covered in between 46.5 and 48 minutes. All in a 49x15 gear. Bob and Bill, thanks for all the motor pacing this fall. It certainly paid off here.

The pros going at it.

Now for some lowlights, and the lessons learned:
1. After night 1, I ate a mystery meat burger/sandwich/??? at the track while we watched the pros race. Sometime around 1:00 AM, said meal woke me up, and I spent a good while giving my offerings at the porcelain alter.
Lesson Learned: If it's cheap and unidentifiable food, don't eat it. Especially before a race.

2. Temporary tracks can be bumpy, and even if you have a saddle that fits and is comfy in most situations, if it isn't padded, it will still feel like someone is kicking you in the ass 5 times per lap. If the saddle fits well, it will just feel like their kicking the bones. Not much better.
Lesson Learned: Bring a more padded saddle next time.
(This lesson and similar justification also applies to bar tape)

3. Dave Wiswell was unfortunate enough to have his saddle literally snap off during the third night of racing due to the bumps in the track. First the rails on one side broke, then a while later, the other side went, leaving him teetering dangerously and uncomfortably on a shell perched on top of the post.
Lesson Learned: Look at my saddle tomorrow, and figure out what the creaking that got louder each night was.
Alternate Lesson: Buy a downhill saddle.


For now, Adrian and I are staying with a really cool woman in Dortmund named Violeta who we meet through CouchSurfing. If you don't know about CouchSurfing, sign up and get on the boat, it's great. We met up with her last night, met her friend Mathias, and spent the evening wandering around Dortmund. It's like having instant friends. Today we had an easy spin around town, but backed out early in our 2-3 planned hours, as it's getting cold here, and we figured we felt "good enough." We have a few more days in Dortmund before heading to Munich to start racing again on Thursday.

Cruising around Dortmund this afternoon.

Check out BF-One to brush up on your Dutch and see some pictures of Adrian and I racing at Alkmaar, and a shot of us traveling in the back of the van (no seats, just two folding chairs and a bunch of bike gear).

Dortmund: Day 2

"...I'm the one that looks like I'm breathing out of my arse!"

Neil Campbell told me this in an email this summer, pointing out how to find the picture from the Madison Cup at T-Town. It could pretty much be used to sum up how tonight's racing went for Adrian and me. If yesterday was a promising start to 6-day racing, today was a slap in the face with the realities of inexperience. We were swarmed at the start, ended up at the back, and in short, spent the whole race either there, or somewhere behind there. It was a whole lot of chasing, catching on, chasing, realizing we were screwed, giving up the lap, chasing, catching on, and getting gapped again. All in all, I think we lost two laps on what was left of the field. There were a handful of other teams in our same position, but that doesn't really make you feel any better when you're actually racing. We missed a few exchanges at inopportune times (there really aren't any good times to miss a lap, but these were exceptionally bad), and were getting dropped like it was going out of style.

All I can say now is that I'm glad the director is running this race as an omnium, with the results of each night netting you points. Laps gained and lost don't carry from night to night. You simply finish each night, get points based on the standings, and start the next night with a clean slate. We had better scrape things together for tomorrow, because today's racing was over before it started.