Laatste Ronde

As in out of work. That’s not quite truthful. I’ll be out of work come September 26 and then get some severance. Until November 1, I would be able to find a position within my current company and maintain my benefits and length of service. The only problem is that the division I work for is shrinking and the jobs are few and hotly contested.

So, I’m on the market. I’ve got 9 years of software development experience. All of it is embedded real-time stuff. I’ve done loads of design and collaboration and work really well with internal and external customers. All my development has been in C and C++ though in the past I’ve dabbled in Java and Perl. Picking up one of those “kiddie” languages is pretty much a snap.

Oh yeah, the cuts were made by seniority. I was just at the dividing line. Just about everyone I work with would be willing to line up as a reference. Nice to be loved, eh?

So anyone out there have any leads in the PDX area? I’m open to exciting opportunities and relish learning new skills.

So does that mean that Sven will be on a Giant come October? It’ll be strange seeing Giants racing in Flanders.

Edit: Sven doesn’t ride for Rabo, he’s switched to Landbouwkrediet (as I myself have mentioned). We’ll be seeing young Lars on a Giant, though.

It wasn’t really a cross race but it counted for cross BAR points … Krugar’s Kermesse. It’s a dirt crit — no dismounts — on farm roads. Think of field access roads. Think of bumpy ground. Think of loose corners. Think of 5:00 laps.

The 35+ A field was pretty small with only a baker’s dozen lining up for the start. The A men went off before us and the SS and A women went off after us.

Everyone got a front row start and I was almost the hole shot but felt content to let a couple of guys set the pace early. Ron Babcock from Portland Velo stayed at the front for a long time. He actually was at the front for most of the race. He finished first as well. He’s rather strong. Anyway, I settled in around 3-4th wheel. This is a training race and as such, I was just going to see what happened. My legs felt pretty good early so I made moves to cover gaps but stayed out of the wind.

On the first lap, I took out a guy’s wheel in a corner. I feel bad for him but he was pulling a rookie crit faux pas. He dove down to take the inside of the corner and I just came down through the apex. Bam. He’s down. On the first lap of a cross race, you don’t go diving into loose sharp corners. You just might hit the deck if you do.

Ron put the hurt on the field early but after a few laps, things seemed to settle down a bit. I was staying frosty and keeping close to the front. Toward the middle of the race, my teammate Bill decided to mix things up and pushed the pace some. I was hurting pretty good and it was at this point I figured it was time to dial it back and ride with the caboose. I took a look and found I was the end of the front group. Uh oh. I was committed.

We eventually picked up a couple of A riders for a total of six (4 masters, 2 As). Ron pushed the pace while his teammate and Bill took some turns at the front. Just before we took two to go, there was a pileup. The first man though (A racer) was okay but the next four went down. I got by with lost momentum but was still upright. I hoped I could keep the gap — maybe catch the A that made it through. By the time I bridged up, Ron and Bill were back on my wheel. I let them through and tried to hang on. I was dangling at the bell but managed to pull it together to stay with them most of the final lap. I finished a couple seconds behind them for third place.

I understand that if I’m hurting, then everyone else must be as well. But I’m pretty positive that Bill and Ron weren’t suffereing quite as much as I was.

Oh, and a typical cross race has lots of transitions that slows things and keeps the pace a little slower overall. Well, this race was balls out 100% start to finish. Nary a hill on the course. And it was bumpy. My hands are a mess. I’ve got blisters and a cramp in my date hand.

But pretty solid for a first race.

Edit: The photo has Bill in front, Ron next, other PV rider third, and me hanging on to fourth.

Since I was planning on racing them tomorrow, I figured I had better get aournd to glueing them up. Tufo Flexus on my staple wheel set — DA hubs and Mavic Reflex rims. I tried out a couple things when gluing and I’ll let ya’ll know how they pan out.

Here’s an idea: tire glueing party. Stop by with some frosty beverages and glue some tires. The old hands show the noobs how it’s done.

My current place of employment is cutting 20% of the workforce in my area. We find out about whether we still have a job or not on Monday. Today we learned that there are likely to be additional job cuts within several months. I’m trying to get a little proactive about searching for alternative employment.

Anyone looking for a Software Engineer? I’ve spent eight years (holy cow!) working in embedded systems with a fair amount of design work — especially interfaces and system integration. Coding is coding and I’m sure that I could get up to speed with about anything in a short time.

Now if my posts were only more than a couple dozen words, maybe they’d be worth reading. Anyway, I was surfing over on Molly’s blog and caught a whiff of some awesome vintage cross press. This is some old school (well, for the US) cross. Give it a read:

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Hey Molly, I really think you need to register for a new domain name. You’d be, like, three times cooler (and you are pretty dambed cool as it is) if your domain were “themollycameron.cx.” I know that Page already does this but I don’t really think you’d get nailed for the copycat.

And I ordered some of the Addidas Marathons because they were on closeout and I couldn’t wait for the sexy yellow Mavics.

Hey Diviney, you racing this Sunday? Game on.

Patrick Wilder is at the top of my shit list. He sends me an email telling me he’s heard rumors that there will be no USGP in Portland this year. This is big news. I respond, stating that the USGP still has Portland listed on the site for December 6 and 7.

Then nothing.

Not a peep.

What the hell? Help a brother out! C’mon! I was expecting some further explanation. But. I. Got. Nothing.

I’ve heard people suggest that time trials would make excellent training for cyclocross. After all, you spend about an hour at threshold in a time trial so it must closely approximate the type of effort in a cross race. Well, not quite. Here are some helpful hints to make your time trial feel more like a cross race.

1. At the beginning of the race, sprint all out for 30-45 seconds.
2. Hit the brakes hard about three times a minute and then sprint back up to speed. Full out.
3. Once every two minutes, dismount your bike and run for 8 to 30 steps, then remount.

Cross isn’t about steady state efforts. It’s about bursts of effort, managing recovery, and managing your psyche. If you want to participate in some training races that will help you for cross, race some short track or some crits. I wrote a whole boatload of stuff about the importance of sprinting back up to speed after transitions last year. Give it a read. It’s important stuff. Training for that kind of effort is key.

Today I went out for a ride. My plan was to do Prune Hill — six steep hills each with pitches in excess of 10%. Since I figured it might rain, I brought along my rain bike which also doubles as my pit bike for cross racing. It’s about a centimeter shorter than my road bike and the seat isn’t as long. It’s great for cross, fine for most rainy day riding, but not so good for steep hills since I like to slide back on the saddle. I’ve also been timing this route for a few weeks and today was perfect weather — cool and overcast.

By the time I got around to setting out on my ride, the roads were dry and I wished that I had brought my road bike since it would have been much faster (more comfortable) on the hills. Oh yeah, my rear rim on the clinchers I used for cross training had given up the ghost a month or so back so I’d swapped out the rear wheel on the rain bike. This morning when I was getting the rain bike ready, I threw on a spare wheel I should have scrapped. The bearings were a bit crunchy and the freehub wasn’t too free.

Once I got underway, I discovered that the start/lap button on my Polar HR would stick so I wasn’t going to be able to time the lap. I rode the couple or three miles over to Prune Hill and made the turn onto Dahlia. As I shifted into bigger cogs as the road pitched up, I discovered that the shifting on the substitute wheel was imprecise and once I got to the smallest cog, the rear mech played a little tune on the spokes. When I got to the 18% section I turned around, daunted by the laundry list of little inconveniences. Did I mention that I accidentally brought my shoes that are a half size too small? Or that I didn’t put the bottle cage on the bike and was carrying water in a borrowed bottle in my back pocket?

I’d talked myself out of riding those hills. I had worn myself down with a litany of trivialities. Once at the bottom, I was disgusted with myself. Who gives a rats patooty if I’m slower than my fastest time. No matter how long it took me to ride those hills, they were going to make me stronger. I turned around and headed back up Dahlia and finished out the rest of the hills. I was about three minutes slower than my good times. But so what? I was putting stresses on my legs — stresses that were going to pay off.

I felt pretty good when I was done.