We Aren't Just Cyclists!

I was riding next to one very proud Carissa Horowitz last weekend as she bragged about her hubby Keith and his involvement with the Mars Phoenix Lander.

I wasn't aware that Keith Horowitz and another fellow cyclist Ron Takeda were involved in building the solar array (whatever that is) that is powering the Mars Lander.

If I understood her correctly they also went to Mission Control and were able to watch the Lander touch down on Mars where the solar array deployed flawlessly.

If you want some more details check it out on Noozhawk.

Good Job Guys, and I guess this is a reminder that you just don't know who you may be riding next to in the good ole peleton. In my case suffering next to.

Enjoy The Ride!

Lonesome Chicken

Memorial Day Weekend is a time for remembering those who have served & sacrificed to protect our freedom, a time for friends & family and a time for RACING! For me this meant I was in the Bay Area participating in the Mount Hamilton Classic Road Race.

For those of you who don't know Mt. Hamilton is the big mound of dirt shadowing the east side of San Jose. The road up and over Mt. Hamilton is an incredibly thin & sinuous strip of asphalt (see photo of Navigation Screen for evidence). The actual Mt. Hamilton Road Race is a point to point race consisting of two different starting points, one on the San Jose side and the other at Isabelle Creek on the downhill side. Luckily for me, my race started a Isabelle Creek. Why lucky? Because this Chicken was flying solo this weekend meaning that once the race was over I'd be riding the course in reverse, uphill and against the wind to get back to the car. I was indeed a lonely Chicken.

As for the race itself, the course climbs steep and quick from the start followed by an even steeper and tighter descent. I was concerned that the first hill would break the group apart and I'd get caught in failing traffic in the middle. And since it was starting to drizzle, I was also concerned about the descent from a safety perspective. So I stayed in a safe position up front. There was one guy who broke away, but he didn't look the part so we let him go with no concern. Once the road flattened and straightened out we rode past the break and it was clear he was done for the day. The race started to take shape on the backside 3 mile climb. Not surprisingly, the big group started breaking up into several distinct groups with about 6 of us rolling over the top in front together. Unfortunately, with the exception of one other rider, no one was willing to work to maintain or grow the gap allowing the second group of about 12 riders to reconnect a couple of miles downhill. A couple of the late short climbs/bumps dropped a few before the course began heading downhill for the final 8 or so miles. This technical descent would drop a couple more and the constantly turning road made it difficult to pass. Coming around a turn with less than two miles to go I could see that the rider two in front of me had lost the wheel in front. The guy in front of me apparently saw the same thing and we both were trying hard to get past, but the rider falling off was all over the road. Finally, I had a seam on the inside and took it. I was in full-on chase mode, but running out of runway. I re-connected with two turns to go and before the bridge that precedes finish in about 11th position. On the way out that morning, I had noticed that there was a broad shoulder after the bridge. I decided to make good use of the early morning reconnaissance passing 6 riders comfortably on the inside and feelin' good. Now 4th wheel with 200M to go I jumped on the pedals and noticed that the front three guys were all on the same San Jose Cycling Team. The guy in 3rd yelled "Flyer" as I started to pass and he started pushing me further outside while the guy in first moved hard left to the yellow line while the guy in second went uncontested for the win. The guys that blocked me caused me to "touch" the breaks ("wuss") allowing a few riders to pass putting me across the line in 7th place. Less than 20 yards separated the top 10 riders. While a little frustrated by the block I was impressed with the way the San Jose guys worked selflessly together to get the win. All in all it was a blast! I was happy that I had made the long drive up to race. That is until I remembered that I had to turn the bike around and ride back up to Isabelle Creek.

Suffice it to say that I had a lot of material for the Memorial Day BBQ. Hopefully next year, I won't be doing a Chicken Solo Act and I'll get to do the full up & over course.

Good Times!

To see photos of the Mount Hamilton Course click the following link: http://www.flickr.com/photos/26685879@N05/sets/72157605292543460/show/. For a description of each slide click the bottom of the the photograph.

Dan Rudd

Barry Wolf Crit

Chicken Ranchers,

just a quick note about my 30+ 3/4 race at the Barry Wolfe crit in
Canoga Park on sunday.

This turned out to be quite a fun and really fast crit and it would be cool to do this as a team race in the future.

The Fast Friday team was in full force with at least 8 riders in the field (out of about 50). I figured the winner would come out of their group and made it my strategy to get into every break I could that had Fast Friday riders in it.

About 20 minutes into the race I thought I had made it into “the break” because it had FOUR Fast Friday riders plus me and 1 other rider, and we got a pretty good gap on the field.

But those 4 Fast Friday riders just couldn’t get it going fast enough (and so much for the rest of their team blocking) ‘cause the field caught us after a few minutes. Seemed like a golden opportunity squandered. But oh well.

The race ended with a field sprint and I got 12th...I obviously still have to work on staying near the front of the field in the furious run up to the sprint. And funny enough it turns out Fast Friday did not win the race.

See ya soon,
Mitch

News Press Clippings From Esquire

think maybe we should post the Friday Newspress clippings on the Blog since so few people actually subscribe to the Newspress. Here it is below (with the Platinum stuff scrubbed out) Please note the inclusion of Matt’s “quad-fecta” phrase that is not to be found in any dictionary; I was bummed they omitted my attempted outing of Robert as “Don Keeballs”):

Kim

“Local cyclists had a banner weekend with several top finishes, with women road cyclists traveling to a stage race in Kern County and mountain bikers of both genders tearing it up close to home at the prestigious Santa Ynez Valley National Presented by Platinum Performance.

The Santa Ynez extravaganza, one of the biggest mountain biking events in the nation, drew thousands of cyclists and spectators to a sweltering four days of action at Charlotte's Meadow. Top cyclists came from all over, and members of the Chicken Ranch Cycling Team and Team Platinum Performace made sure that plenty of the hardware stayed in Santa Barbara County.

For Chicken Ranch, first place finishes were taken by Sue Fish in the 50+ Sport Women's race and by Mike Abbot in the Downhill Sport Clydesdale 35+ race.

In Cross Country for Chicken Ranch, Robert Ramirez was third in Sport 40-44; John Nygren third in Beginner 35-39; Jackson Sproul third in Junior Boys 12-Under; Brad Brown fourth in Beginner 45-49 (behind a couple of Pro and ex-Pro road cyclists); Seth Sproul fifth in Sport 30-34; Mike Abbot fifth in Sports Clydesdale 35+; Brian Bermudes eighth in Sport 30-34; Pete Sproul ninth in Expert 35-39 (despite having to change a flat tire mid-race); and Craig Zimmerman ninth in Sport 40-44. Mike Abbot, racing the quad-fecta over the weekend, also took 2nd in the Sport 40+ Dual Slalom race and 5th in the Open Men 40+ Super D.

• The Kern County Women's Stage Race also endured hot temperatures last weekend -- topping over 100 degrees -- in four stages over three days: a 10-mile time trial on Friday, a 50-mile road race on Saturday morning and 13-mile uphill time trial on Saturday afternoon, and a different 50-mile road race on Sunday morning.

Among Chicken Ranch women, Susie "Podium Girl" Willett took second place overall in Category 3 after winning the opening time trial and placing second in each of the following stages. Kim Turner finished sixth overall, including a fourth place in the opening time trial.”

Can You Name This Dynamic Duo?

I think FRS is kicking off a new marketing campaign and brought back the infamous Bartles & Jaymes. I could be wrong, so please chime in with your guess as to who this dyamic duo is! Happy Memorial Day!

Santa Ynez Valley National Mountain Bike Race

Well another Firestone (or SYVNMBS) in the books. First off, let me just say how glad I was to be racing at 8 am after pre-riding the course on Friday from 1-2:30 pm. Ouch.

Showed up around 7, got my usual 15 minute warm up in and then stood at the starting line for another 10-15 minutes. My legs had been feeling good and I’d been riding well and was really hoping to crack the top 5 this time around. I was feeling even better about that when I didn’t see Todd at the starting line. Already moved up one place before the race even started! I did notice a number of guys who I’d never seen before who looked pretty fast. Gun went off and people took off at the usual smoking pace. I settled in about mid pack, 10th or so. Kept this position for a while then moved up a couple of spots about half way through the first lap. I could see a good sized group of about 5-7 guys from my category about 25 seconds ahead of me going into the second to last climb. Held this steady through that climb then started the second to last down hill on the far end of the course. Right near the bottom there was a dip that was fairly rutted, not very narrow ruts but I managed to go from one to the other while kind of turning my handlebar a bit and partially rolled my tire. Went from about 28 lbs of pressure to 20 or less. I was thinking I would be fine if I could just get up the last hill, down and through the start/finish then to Ramirez who was feeding Matt and I. All I could think of was adding air in the shade (it was probably high 90’s by now and I was a little warm). I was pretty bummed as I had ridden pretty under control and I knew guys were going to start blowing. I (barely) survived through the start/finish where Matt caught up to me. We rode up the little start hill together and he dropping in first to the dh with the berm at the bottom. Good thing because if I’d been in front I would have taken us both out. My tire rolled again and I went straight over the berm into a pile. Got up took out my co2, struggled mightily to get it to function (amazing what o2 debt and 100 degree temps will do to your mind). Finally did and got the tire back to normal. I was pretty bummed by this time and was sitting probably in 15th or so. Decided to keep plugging away, got new bottles from Ramirez, handed him my 5 lb multitool I forgot to remove from my bike before the race and was off for lap two. 10 minutes later I found I had jinxed Matt as he was walking down the first dh with a totally blown front tire. Bummer ‘cause he was on way to at least a top 3 finish and was riding well. I started to feel better as the lap went on and passed a ton of guys. I knew I was going well when I caught up with Ron Takeda, who had passed me earlier, and went flying by him. I kept telling myself that I was going to catch guys that were blowing. I ended up passing quite a few guys including a number from my group in the last two miles, finished strong in 9thand felt good about my race despite the tire issue.

That night as I was lying in bed it kind of hit me how stupid it was to keep riding and not fix my tire right away. I could have lost 45 seconds instead of 2-5 minutes from all the super slow riding I was forced to do with the flat tire over the last couple of miles. Douh!!

Headed back over on Sunday to watch Jackson and my brother race. They both had great races with Jackson actually beating half of the kids he started with and riding really strong taking 3rd in the 12 and under category. My brother, Seth, had his best race since the early 1990’s when he used to beat me and finished 5th in Sport 30-34. Nice job to all the other CR’s out there on Sunday, especially iron man Mike Abbott who raced every event that was available to him!

See you all soon.

Pete

Sea To Summit

While there were thin wheelin' Chickens riding in Bakersfield & Modesto and fat-wheelin' Chickens riding in the Santa Ynez Valley, there were a few "Not-so-smart Chickens" sweatin' at the Sea to Summit event in Ventura & Kern Counties. For those of you who don't know, Sea-to Summit is an annual cycling event that starts close to sea level in Ventura and finishes 87 miles later atop the 8, 327' summit cul-de-sac of Mt. Pinos for a total elevation gain of 12,000'. Our very own Testrider, Ben Edwards talked me into participating in this year's Sea-to-Summit and I felt the neighborly thing to do was to extend the same invitation to our newest Santa Barbara resident, Randy Tinney.

The day started on a good note in that it was actually cool at roll-out. The question bouncing around the big group of riders on the way to Ojai was "how long would it stay cool?" And, "do you think we'll make it over Big Pine Summit before the heat kicks in?" These questions were answered with great clarity less than hour in and by the time we reached the tunnels on Hwy. 33. It was officially "HOT" and "No", we wouldn't reach Big Pine Summit, Rose Valley or even the Ranger Station before it turned hot! As the climb to Rose Valley always does, it broke the big front group of riders up into many smaller groups including a lead break of five. By the time we reached the Rose Valley turn-off I realized that the theme of the day was not so much about who would finish first, but one of survival. Who was going to hydrate right and survive the heat, elevation gain and altitude? After grabbing some fresh beverages at Rose Valley, we reconnected with the second pack where we settled into a nice tempo in a safe position off the front while dropping a few off the back. Our support crew extraordinaire of one, Elda, exchanged our bottles at Big Pine Summit before Randy and I rolled over into the highlight of the day - the big descent to Lockwood Valley! The view was epic (see photo), as was the descent. Randy put his 53:11 into to gear and was hooting & hollerin' while he sling-shot us down the 12 mile slope. We passed the group that left the summit before us like they were standing still. That would be the last we would see of them on this day. Unfortunately, the turn onto Lockwood Valley Road would be the end of the good times. All I had heard about this course was in relation to the the two big climbs of Big Pine and Mt. Pinos. No one ever mentioned anything about Lockwood Valley which shouldn't be called a valley at all because the steepest climbs of the day hit us in the face in this so-called "valley". As did the hottest part of the day and the stiffest winds. Randy pointed out on several occasions that "this isn't very fun" and that "I was a very bad person for getting him involved in this thing". The relentless combination of heat & elevation gain was showing its' toll by the ever-thinning group of riders and a leg cramp that made Ben scream like a school girl at American Idol. Luckily for Ben, "Elda-matic" was stationed a 100 yards uphill with the requisite fluids, electrolytes and food in hand. Ben shook off the cramp and cranked out the rest of the ride. The ride concluded with the 14 miles ascent of Mt. Pinos. While the climb isn't too steep, it is relentless in that it never gives you a break. After a watermelon slice hand-off and a cold water dousing I got into a nice groove and caught the guy in front me only to have to stop and massage out a case of "hot foot" that hurt so bad that I thought my feet were going to explode. A minute later I was back on the bike and pedaling strong for what I was told was the last 2 miles, but turned out to be 3.5. As I came around the final turn the guy in front came into sight and I instinctively jumped on the pedals Although I didn't have near enough runway to catch the guy, I was happy I had the legs to finish with a strong uphill sprint and to hear I was the 4th to finish. Since the theme of the day had been "heat", you can imagine my surprise to find the summit parking lot flanked with packs of snow.

I can tell you that the Sea-to-Summit course is beautiful, but in the heat it is the toughest 87 miles I've ever ridden on the road. Despite the challenge, I have a feeling I'll be out there again next year if it doesn't overlap with a race that actually counts. Randy, are you in???

Good Times. Thanks Ben - I think...

PHOTOS (Click on photo bottom for description): http://www.flickr.com/photos/26685879@N05/sets/72157605133874225/show/
Dan Rudd


Ben added his .02

Great report Dan... and spot on, except you left out one part. As I started fading after mile 50 and a hill named "Heartbreak" that happened to be in the "Valley" Dan reeled me in. We traded pulls through the rest of the valley, but as we hit the slopes of Mt. Pinos Dan's tempo was too much for me and he sailed away to his fourth place. I was barely moving at this point and past by a few guys that may or may not have been on recumbents. I ended up 8th, thanks mainly to Elda's impromptu support of a Chicken in distress. Watermelon is without a doubt the greatest on bike food and may soon be a banned substance.


With all that said I will definitely be riding Sea to Summit next year... I hope Dan, Randy, and I have some more Chickens to share the pulls in Lockwood "Valley"!


Ben