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X-Mas cross & MTB Follies

To kick off the end of the cross season, team bicycle therapy will be hosting the return of the X-Mas cross and MTB Follies. This was a race that the shop used to promote back in the days when people did cross races on old steel clunkers cobbled together from leftovers in the basement or junkyard. In this vain we will be holding this race the day before the Bilenky Junkyard Cross race for an extra special weekend of cross as only the city of brotherly can provide, full of shenanigans and tetanus shots. The "Follies" race will be held on December 18th up on the Belmont plateau and the Junkyard cross will be held amongst the twisted metal that the boys at Bilenky call home.

More details will follow.

There will also be a party Saturday night

So this lasr wekend a few of the team went up to race in Providence RI and a few went up to NY to do the westwood race. for the rest of us it was a weekend off. which means long rides with coffee in manyunk and a dutch pancake (pannkoeken) party. Here are a few shots of the weekend, cause you know we can't be bothered to write up a race report.

Meisha never stops surprising me, like when on Saturday he pulled out musette bag for carrying home baguettes.

On Sunday's ride we saw something on the side of the road that reminded us that big pussies needs love to.

Some people think the handkerchief hanging out of the back pocket looks cool. Mikey, on the other hand, likes the pancakerchief. mm panckaes and beer.
These two are shots of the consequences of the first real muddy race last weekend (town hall). I finally got to use the hose in my back for something other than ....
Mr.T's water war!

Townhall Cross Men's B Race Report...

Last Saturday, Willem and I hopped in the Focus and blazed up the Northeast Extension to Bethlehem, PA for the first annual Townhall Cross Race. On the way up we made our usual stop at Wawa for their pretzels and clean facilities (race day always gives me a nervous stomach.)

We did a pre-ride and the course was pretty compact...there weren't a lot of fast power sections, but lots and lots of fun up and downs and off-camber turns as well as the main event: St. Luke's Staircase, a long slog up a hill with somewhere around a half-dozen switchbacks. It ended with a nasty, slick kicker at the top that a lot of people ended up running.

I ended up starting in the first row for the first time ever and wasted no time in taking the holeshot. However, my time at the front was short-lived, but I did get a brief moment of glory as we ascended St. Luke's Staircase for the first time. Willem and I were right at the front and we both rode the steep, slick top part. Somebody behind us was impressed and yelled out something along the lines of "WAY TO GO, BICYCLE THERAPY! RIDE IT!" which got me psyched.

Willem got into a pretty select group after the top of the hill and I didn't see him again until after the race when I asked him how he did (he won, taking Team BT's first cross scalp of the season.) I faded back a little bit, lost a few spots but then found my rhythm.

One of the fun things about cross is that even though you may be out of the race at the front, you can still find yourself in an epic battle somewhere in the middle, and I spent the final three laps of the race duking it out with two dudes for 6-8th place. I ended up finishing 7th...one dude I just couldn't catch and the other dude I did everything short of tackling him to keep him from passing me. At one point, I slid out on a turn passing a lapped rider and spread my entire body out in front of him to prevent him from getting by. I apologized for racing like a dick afterwards and we laughed about it...reason number 3497239472 why cross rules. If that had happened in a road race there would have been a fist fight in the parking lot. Matt Allyr and Eric Oishi, I only know your names from the results on USACycling.com, but we had an awesome couple of laps and I look forward to crossing swords again. I fricking love bike racing.

After the B race, Team BT had a couple of people in the later races. Meisha took 5th in the 55+ Masters race. While cheering him on, Willem and I had the following exchange:

Willem (cheering on random Masters riders): "C'mon! Keep it up! Keep it up!"

Jack: "Dude, that's fucked up! Don't tell a masters rider to keep it up! They probably hear that shit all the time!"

I kid, I kid.

There was only one women's race, so Nathalie and Linda took on a pretty stacked field in the 1/2/3/4 race...Linda ended up 10th and Nathalie 13th.

All in all, an awesome day of racing...great weather, great dudes and ladies, and AM beers in the parking lot after the race.

(re)gluing tires

As some well known blogger (bsnyc) once wrote, you're not serious until you've started to use adhesive to mount your tires. It seems like everybody and their pet chihuahua is blogging these days about proper tire gluing technique. Its been a while since our last post and we here at team BT, after long deliberation at team meetings (the bar), have decided to prepare a tutorial for our ever faithful audience on how to properly mount a tubular (or power bottom). Now a few words of caution, team BT's interest in tire mounting as of late has come about by the early season cross races that have tested our gluing techinique more than the limits of our strength and endurance (nobody on the team even broke a sweat at nittany). So far the team is 2 for 3 in the last three races in how many times a team member has rolled a tire.

Discalimer: none of these were glued at the shop.

So when asking about mounting technique our ever verbose wellspring of knowledge Mikey Green had this to say:

I would, but I'm out of town.

Just make sure you apply several layers to each the rim and the tire using thin even coats. I've found the V.Mastik to dry rather quickly which makes it a bit difficult the control.. Here are some tips:

work in small sections. Apply a bead of glue between spoke holes and spread. Once you get the flow, work slightly larger sections.

Rim, rim, tire, tire. By the time you've glued each four components, the first glued will be dry enough to apply another layer. Aim for three coats on each tire and rim. Remember thin even coats covering entire base tape and edge to edge on the rim. It's easiest to inflate the tire to keep shape and bend it to a figure eight.

Once all layers are on and dry, apply a bead all the way around the rim and spread it quickly. This is the wet coat. Tire will be mounted almost immediately.

Take deep breath.

Get your tire and insert the valve stem. Stretch the tire and set it in the rim bed in 6 inch increments. Stretch evenly. By the tome you get to the final section it should snap on with a little thumb effort.

Now make sure it is straight using the base tape around the stem area as a reference. Spin it and adjust any high or low spots as needed. Inflate more and make micro adjustments.

You're done. Now do it again with the other wheel and grab a victory beer.

M.g.

Or you can take Jacks approach: "its arts and craft time, lets glue one thing to another, C'mon we learned this in grade school"

Kirkwood

We can all learn some lessons from the 4 race at Kirkwood this past weekend. For starters, if you want to block for a teammate on a breakaway, all you have to do is ride like 95% of the Tuesday night Drives Ride. Act like you just don't quite have what it takes to pull through to the front, but refuse to drop out of rotation. Andrew Satinsky nailed that act this weekend, allowing me to get enough of a gap on a two-man break that I thought we might be able to stay away.

Which brings us to lesson two: Know the guy next to you. If he makes you a little nervous, ignore it. It's a 4 race, for crying out loud. Everybody is a little shaky on race day. But if he makes you a lot nervous, trust your gut. He's probably going to half-wheel you down a hill and put you into the split-rail fence at the bottom. By the time we got bikes untangled and got rolling, the main field had us in their sights again, and the break was over. Time to sit up and get some rest before the inevitable bunch sprint, right?

Wrong. Lesson three: The punishment WILL fit the crime. Andrew was pretty harshly punished for his excellent teamwork, and got hung out to dry on the front of the pack for the better part of a lap. On a pretty windy day, no less. By the time we pulled on to the final straight, a mile long false flat into a steady headwind, our fate was sealed. I didn't have enough left in my legs to bring the pace up and string things out, so when I looked back at 1k to go and saw Andrew over my shoulder with the rest of the field spread 6-deep across both lanes just behind him, I knew our fate was sealed. God bless him for trying, though.

And after he went for it, and the pack engulfed us, and we chatted across the finish line into 22nd and 23rd places, there were a few LHLs in the trunk to take some of the sting out of bitter, bitter defeat.

We'll conclude today's exercise with lesson four: If you're going to lose, do it in good company. It also doesn't hurt to know that there's a bushel of steamed crabs waiting for you just a 15 mile ride away, to know that you're going to spend the evening breathing clean suburban air tinged with horse manure instead of whatever it is that fills the Delaware, and that in the morning you're going to ride home shoulder to shoulder with people you CAN trust not to edge you off the road.


















Oh, and smores. Smores help too.

Brownstown 2/3 Race Report...

Last weekend, Team BT was represented in both the 4 and 2/3 races at Brownstown. Ansel, Andy, Mike Mast and Brendan did the 4. Dan, Willem and I rounded out the squad for the 2/3. I’ll let the boys in the 4 race do their own race report.

It was really toasty when we lined up…somewhere north of 90 degrees. However, there was a steady breeze throughout the race that kept things from getting too hot and also made position in the pack very important.

The course was great…it was relatively flat, with a lot of turns and a super fun section with a loose chip road.

The Team BT plan was to sit in for a while and see how things went before trying to animate the race. Willem attacked a few times early and Dan kept things interesting as well, trying to bridge solo to an early break and then trying to get away later in the race. I hadn’t raced since Turkey Hill the first week of May, so my strategy was to sit in and see if I could seize an opportunity at the end.

As per usual, the break that stuck was one that we didn’t get into. 7 or 8 guys got away, with plenty of teammates in the field to block/chase down attacks, so with about two to go we were working on getting a good result in the field sprint.

For some reason, I lost track of which lap we were on…I thought the penultimate lap was the last one, and put in some good work moving myself up to 5th wheel. I sat on the wheel of everyone trying to get up the road, maintaining my position but definitely drawing the ire of some of my fellow racers. I buried myself keeping this position and readying myself for what I thought would be the final sprint.

With about a mile and a half to go, I heard a spectator call out “Great job, only one more to go!” My heart sank. While this wasn’t as dramatic as sprinting to “victory” on the penultimate lap and then realizing there was still one to go, I was pretty cooked and dropped back into the pack. I worked my way back up to the middle of the pack on the final lap, but couldn’t get any closer.

In the end, Dan factored into the field sprint, placing 13th overall (and 1st Cat 3!!!) . I wasn’t close enough to the front to bother with sprinting, so I rolled in at 29th overall, 10th Cat 3. Willem got gapped a little bit with 4 to go and ended up getting pulled.

All in all, a good day on the road and we celebrated in our usual fashion with beers immediately after the race. Even if the race doesn’t go exactly right for you, it’s always a good day when you finish with the rubber side down, drinking a Magic Hat in the parking lot.