The Amazing Journey Pt. 1

Somewhere in Indiana.

There is nothing in Kansas. Nothing.

Crossing the state line into Colorado.

My first Colorado sunset.

Merckx

Devi

Beginning the climb, looking East. Denver skyline in the distance.

A place called Red Rocks. There's a theater there. You may have heard of it.

Snow-capped peaks in the distance

Mount Falcon summit

I am seated at a desk beside a cat named Merckx. A wood burning stove is humming behind me. A spare bedroom is full of bikes. I am in Denver. I left New Jersey and a lifetime of memories four days ago. And four days were spent inside my van, whether it being in the drivers seat or buried beneath every blanket I own, and whether gazing out at the endless expanse of I-70 or up at the halogen glow of the lights in a Wal-mart parking lot.

Not much can be said about driving through the heartland, which is, in a way, why I have started this entry once I reached the Rockies. I can sum up the experience in just a few sentences. After Pennsylvania, there really isn't much to see until St. Louis. The Arch was pretty cool and so was crossing the Mississippi River, although it was already dark out and it came and went rather quickly. The only other thing left to say is that Kansas is the worst state I have ever driven through. At first, it's actually quite amazing and I thought, "Wow, I can't believe how vast and endless it is." Nine hours later, I was saying "I can't believe how vast and endless this is!" but in a much more exhaustible tone. The entire time, I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the Rocky Mountains to first emerge on the horizon. Unfortunately, it never happened.

The sun had set just as I crossed the Colorado state line and I was still looking at a flat line. Darkness. I exited off I-70 for the first time in over 1,000 miles onto Rt. 24, a curvy highway that seemed to be gaining elevation, or at least it felt that way. I imagined that the road was tree-lined and that I was entering a more mountainous area, but once in a while the lights of a distant town proved that the sky was still as massive and the landscape was still as flat as before. With 20 miles to go after 12 hours at the wheel (such a long stint was partially due to the adrenaline rush of reaching Colorado Springs that night, but also because I had not seen a Wal-mart since Topeka) the tell-tale signs of an approaching storm had proven positive and I was greeted with snow. I was smiling ear to ear.

Finding a Wal-mart in this town was easy. There was not one, but three to pick from. I settled in for the night and the morning sky revealed what had been hidden from sight the night before. Somehow, as in magically, as I slept, the snowy mountains silently grew from the flat horizon that I was sure was there only yesterday. I guess John Denver wasn't so full of shit after all.

Having arrived two days ahead of schedule, I decided to take up an offer from a friend whose only ties were that of cyberspace and a passion for cycling. Ken rides for the same team as me, but this was the first time we've met. I have followed his travels with his girlfriend, Sarah on their blog and have admired their outdoorsy lifestyle, so I was excited to finally meet them and also have a warm bed and a hot shower.

It is now the first day of December and I am back in Colorado Springs. I have been reunited with my friends from High Gear who arrived here this morning. We are headed to the first session of classes. Stay tuned for part 2!

Psycho Cross

A new race was added to the NJ Cup calendar this year, the Cyclocross at Central Park of Morris County. It was held on the grounds of the abandoned Greystone Psychiatric Mental Institution, whose main building provided the eerie grey backdrop to the day's race course.

As it turned out, the CXCP race fell on the same day as the Staten Cross (SICX) MAC race, which is a huge event and draws racers from all over the tri-state area. Knowing this, and closely monitoring the confirmed riders list on Bikereg.com, I decided it would be advantageous to sign up for the Pro race. All the heavy hitters that routinely dominate the A race would either be at Staten or in Fort Collins, CO for the USGP race the following weekend. The A race carries a payout that usually goes five deep, so there was a chance I would make a little money... though at a price.

That price was suffering for a full hour as opposed to the 40-45 minutes for the B racers. Until about three days before the pre-registration cutoff, I was the only person signed up. My plan was seeming to play out perfectly. I ride my bike leisurely around the course for an hour and collect my check at the end. Well, it didn't quite go like that, as you could have imagined.

Come race day, six other riders signed up for my race, so I would have to beat two of them just to get a podium spot. Some of these guys are my friends, including Ryan Heerschap and BL, so it was going to be fun no matter what. However I knew that I was going to suffer horribly just to finish, and that it was not a question of if I was going to get lapped, but how many times?

After a thorough warm up, I headed for the starting line where I noticed that two of the riders were not present. Sweet! All I would have to do is finish and I would get paid. From the whistle, I immediately accepted my spot in dead last, but was actually able to hold the pace and hung on for the first half lap. Slowly, they began to form a gap on me that I had no desire to close. It was a long race and if I tried to hang on, I would surely have blown up.

Just finish the race. Easier said than done. This course had some really huge divots in the race line, unfortunately on some of the portions of the course where I really wanted to open it up. One false move and I could have damaged my bike and ended my day. With no pit bike or extra wheels, I was just a little cautious. I did not hold back though, and I raced at 100% the entire time. The few fans who were still there and some of my good friends were cheering me on the whole way, making it impossible to ease off.

As I rolled through the start/finish to begin lap 3, the scorer called out "9 laps to go!" and I yelled, "WHAT?!?" This was going to be a long race. Somewhere around lap 4 I got my second wind and actually felt good. I turned it up a little bit, drilling the sections where I knew I could go fast. I was actually really excited that only the top three guys lapped me and it wasn't until lap 9 of 11 that they caught me. When BL was approaching, I saw that my friend Art had stuck a $5 bill in the mud between the barriers. I rode as hard as I could to hold off BL, beat him to the barriers and claim my prize.

Since I had so much time, I really focused on my technique. I nailed every dismount/remount and rode very clean. I still felt relatively good after an hour of pain and sprinted out of the saddle to the finish. It was all smiles and handshakes at the end and a feeling of a great accomplishment. A quick change into my street clothes and I was back to the scoring tent to claim my first Pro level payout. I'm glad that my plan worked out and I am thankful for the experience to race with guys at this level and sort of hang on and not completely die in the face. I am going to switch my attention back to my training this winter and hopefully return next year with the legs to actually give these guys a fight.

My darkest hour

There's been a lot going on lately. Only my closest friends know exactly what's happening... and only my closest friends read this (I think), so I won't explain at length the details. Money, as much as I dislike the concept and choose to not let it control me, has become a problem.

With race mechanic school being paid for and my spot awaiting me, it is now paramount that I get myself out there in time. With already diminished funds, having signed my condo over to the bank and an unexpected repair to the van, it became evident that saving up enough money to get there may not be possible. Cue the untimely termination of my job.

Just when things were looking to be the most difficult, as I was reeling from a succession of blows, the knockout punch was delivered and I hit the mat. Unbelievable how I could be let go just a month before I was going to amicably part ways with my employer, with which I have been entirely honest from the start that I planned to leave for Colorado in November. The same employer who threatened to not hire me back after being laid off for the winter if I didn't agree to finish the year instead of leaving in July like I originally planned. Looking back, knowing now the quality of business owner I was dealing with, it would have been better (and more satisfying to be doing the screwing, rather than being screwed) to not have said anything at all and just gave my two weeks when I was ready to go.

Instead, the last two paychecks I was counting on to fund my trip West won't be attained. My employer also was unwilling to let me collect my full unemployment benefits, which I know is bullshit and I could go before an appeals board and surely win. But rather than go through all the effort, I did something way more satisfying. I had some of my good friends get me a job at my previous employer's biggest rival shop. I started the very next day after my last day at the other place, not skipping a beat.

Though this new job doesn't pay quite the same, the caliber of talent who work there, in only three days, have given me the necessary leads to help me find work immediately after receiving my race mechanic license. So maybe it was for the best. The saddest thing about losing my job was no longer being able to serve the customers that I have gotten to know on a personal level who have grown to trust me with their bikes.

One of them, who I believe to be one of those people put in our lives at just the right time, has shared some wisdom with me that has completely changed the way I view my financial situation. Regarding my foreclosure and outstanding debt to the bank, he told me that banks don't lend money out of the kindness of their hearts, nor because they think Nick is a heck of a nice guy and they want to do him a favor. They are in business and that business is only to earn a profit on the interest they'll collect from the money they lent me. In all business, there is risk. The risks that banks take is that some people will default on their loans. Their business models calculate for this risk as a percentage. They took a chance on me, I defaulted, they lose.

My friend told me that by no means should I feel guilty about it. He said we are taught from when we are young that if we borrow something from someone we should return it. But regarding banks and loans, it is business and nothing else. I was pretty worried about what would happen to me if I didn't pay back my loans, but not any more. He assured me that there is a protocol that banks follow to collect their money. They will try to call me, my place of work, my family members. They will try to sound sympathetic and play with my emotions, but all they care about is their business, not about me. There's nothing they can do to harm me personally and the government has laws in place to protect me, so not to worry. My mind is at ease now. Raj, I know you're reading this, so, thank you.

Speaking of things becoming more difficult as time goes on, the last race of the H2H season, the Leafblower at Ringwood State Park, was this passed Sunday. My friend, Ryan has already taken the Cat 1 30-39 series title, so he had chosen to race up and enter the Pro/Cat 1 Open division. The rules say that once you race up, you can't downgrade during that season, but since it was the last race of the season it didn't matter. That's how I was convinced to do the Pro race with him.

On top of racing against guys that are insanely fast, the pros also race a longer distance, typically one more lap than the Elite riders do. Four laps at Ringwood is not impossible for me, but ideally I don't want to take 5 hours to do 30 miles and find out that everyone had packed up to go home by the time I finished. Much to my chagrin, when I went to pick up my number I discovered, by some miracle, that the Pros would only be doing 3 laps, just like the Elite field. Phew!

Rewind a bit though. The night before, I was so stressed about my situation that I couldn't sleep. I was doing calculations for how much gas money I'd need to cover the distance and got overwhelmed. So I got up to use a calculator. I realized I wouldn't make enough money through wages alone to cover it, which made it even harder to fall asleep. It was after 2am when I finally did. When I woke up, though, I saw that it was an absolutely perfect Fall day, I was really excited to be riding at Ringwood, and I was going to see all my friends.

I had just finished reading "The Alchemist" and particularly enjoyed the message it sent. The take home message was the importance of listening to your heart. It speaks the language of the universe, the language spoken by all things. When we are living in accordance with our own personal legends, we should look for omens to assure us we're on the right path. When I was driving to Ringwood, I was looking for the parking area at Shepard Lake. I had been there before, but didn't remember how to get there. Instead of checking a map before I left, I decided to just wing it. When I turned down a road I wasn't sure of, a red Jeep Cherokee passed me coming the other way. An omen, I thought. Turned out it was the correct road and I made it to Shepard Lake.

Since I had entered the Pro/Cat 1 race, I was to receive a single-digit number plate. I may have mentioned before that I am superstitious when it comes to race numbers. My lucky number is 6, so when I got a 3-digit race number, if it had a 6 in it I was happy. If it didn't, I would try to create some kind of equation with the three numbers to try and equal 6. For example, my number at the World Cup was 263. So that was double lucky because 2x3=6 and it had a 6 in it already. So I was hoping my number would be 6 and when the lady handed it to me, I got really excited! But my excitement was short-lived because when I saw the orientation of the text, I realized that my number was indeed 9. Not bad, though. 3 goes into 9 3 times, so 3+3=6 and 9-3=6. See? Lucky.

I actually knew I didn't stand a fighting chance with these guys, so I resorted to settling into my place at the back and riding, not so much racing the course. I felt great, it was a beautiful day, and the trails were in perfect condition. I was thinking about "The Alchemist" as I was riding. The boy in the story learns to communicate with nature (not in the sense that you might initially suspect) by speaking the language of the universe, the same language spoken by our hearts. I decided to give it a try. The terrain was rocky and at a race pace, it shook my hands to the point where my fingers ached from holding the grips so tightly. When I was descending a fire road section at 20+ mph, I asked the earth to show me the smoothest line. The earth said it didn't know, but to ask the water. The water was flowing down the fire road and it told me to follow it, since water follows the path of least resistance. I must sound crazy, but this actually was going through my head out there.

At times like these, when one can ask their self how much worse can a situation get before it gets better, we're reminded that the darkest hour comes right before the dawn. Sometimes when things are going badly, at the time we don't understand why. But when we are on our path and we are patient, eventually we learn to view the situation in a different way, and we're able to see the underlying good in everything.

The way I viewed my number when I was on my bike.

Rumble in the Jungle

The setup.

Pre-race meditation in the hammock.

Apple-cinnamon Hammer Gel compliments of Tara.

I saw the photographers all set up on this burm, so I railed it!

Smiling despite the suffering.

Coog had the low angle shot at this log ride, just before the finish line. I saw him and gave it everything I had to air over it. It would either be a great pic or a great crash. I cleared it and then some!

Jungle Habitat, one of my favorite parks, was host to H2H Race #8 and the 2010 NJ State Championship. It's a very technical course that can really keep those who have strong aerobic engines in low gear and rewards those who have the best bike handling ability. That was my only advantage in the Cat 1 30-39 field, who are arguably the fastest in the series.

Once again, it was my goal to not come in last and once again I succeeded. It's also a bonus when you don't crash, and I always hope to never do that. It was a crash-free race, thankfully, and despite the fact that rock gardens and technical sections were being taken at race pace, my bike suffered no mechanical issues.

My carrot for the day was my friend Lucky, who rides for Cycle Craft and has been doing consistently better than me in the last few races. I knew we were closely matched and it was shaping up to be a showdown. From the start, we watched the lead group pull ahead and we didn't go after them, rather just settled into our own pace. Lucky led most of lap one and I stayed right on his wheel, until a mistake on the first techy descent allowed me to get by. I kept ahead of him for the rest of the race. My gap on him diminished on every climb as he reeled me back in, only for me to regain the distance on the descents. It's a funny thing. When you're leading, you want to go fast enough to keep your opponent behind you, but not so fast that you lose control. When you're chasing, you want to go faster than, but not so fast that you make mistakes and lose the ground you worked so hard for.

I was able to hold him off as well as four other guys to get 12th, my best Cat 1 finish. I am very pleased with how well I rode and how I didn't bonk. There was the necessary power right til the end to power up climbs and to showboat for the photographers. It's always a good time before, during, and after the race, seeing all my good friends as we cheer each other on and share our experiences. The best part was on lap 2 when my coach, Ken, was standing amidst the numerous switchbacks on the climb up Animal Chute near the end of the lap. I heard him cheering for me all the way up the hill as I was murdering bitches in the face. I don't even remember what he was saying, but it helped so much.

So there's one more H2H race left, the Leafblower at Ringwood on Oct. 3. It's another one of my favorite parks and it's another challenging race course. After this, my focus will be solely on cyclocross for the rest of the year. I'm kind of sad to hang up the xc bike for a while, but cross is ridiculously fun and it will be xc time again before I know it.

In a quick little side story, one of my friends and racing buddies, Ryan Heerschap, had me build him a super light racing wheelset and he debuted them at this race. He rode them to a 2nd place finish, 2nd in the NJ State Championships, and locked himself into 1st overall in the H2H series. It was so rewarding to play even a small role in an athlete's achievements. As an aspiring race mechanic, it's exactly this feeling that I hope to share with all of the racers who I will be assisting in my future.

Nice job, Ryan.

Gentlemen, start your engines!

Checking in... and checking out that cute girl with the cast!

Lap 1 and eating dust

"Don't hit the brakes, don't stop pedaling."

I love this picture. It was a quick downhill into a sweeping left and I hit this at full speed. I passed this guy like he was going backwards. He's looking over at me and I have a huge smile on my face.

This is the number of days out of the year that I kick ass.

I climbed a tree for a better view of the Elite Master Men's race and I tore my arm up on my return to Earth.

The 2010 'cross season is underway with the first race of the year in the books. Saturday was the Nittany Lion CX near Trexlertown, PA, home of the Valley Preferred Cycling Center and super awesome velodrome.

It wasn't a surprise that it was pretty hot on Saturday since it's still early September, but add to it the fact that we haven't had any significant rainfall in weeks and you have some pretty non-cyclocross-like conditions. The grass was burnt yellow, the dirt was a sandy light brown, and the ground as hard as concrete. The course had no real elevation and was lacking the usual, too steep to ride, run-up that is characteristic of a cyclocross circuit. The conditions made for an insanely fast, and dusty, race where there wasn't any real area where one could rest. Just an all out sprint.

I did well at a race like this last season at Hidden Valley, but was my engine as strong this year as it was last year? The name of the game was to not give my opponents any extra room. This meant pedal strokes. Any time I wasn't pedaling and my competition was, I was losing ground. We zig-zagged across a soccer field, which meant long straightaways linked by 180 degree turns. I had worked very hard to attack racers in the technical portions leading up to this, only to lose my lead on them on the soccer field on the first three laps. It is disheartening when you can't make your passes stick and you see the guy you just passed passing you back and you can't do a thing about it. On the last few laps, it was important not to let anyone catch me through this section, so I had a mantra going through my head to keep me going, "Don't hit the brakes, don't stop pedaling."

As the race progressed, my fitness didn't diminish and I was able to attack riders and hold them off while I set my sights on the next guy in front of me. From starting in last place (and I mean DEAD last) I was able to fight through about 1/3 of a field of about 100. Not too bad for my first B race. I'll try to get better starting positions later in the season and hopefully be able to stay up there. Already looking forward to the next 'cross race, but first there are a couple more XC races I want to do. Up next is the NJ State Championship and second to last H2H race at one of my favorite parks, Jungle Habitat.

Race the World

Windham World Cup photo dump. Words to come...

Worked a full day then drove 3 hours to Windham, NY. Nice bags!

Watching the Pro Women on Saturday.

Early morning preparations.

Last second tune up. All systems go!

Another lucky number

Last blast through the woods before the sick descent. The girl in the background, "Nice tushy!"

On the ski run at full speed back to the bottom.

The "kick in the nuts" hill.

Thanks, Coog for taking our pictures!

Oh well why not?

So a new cross season is about to begin and with that, the need for a fancy new skinsuit from my sponsor, DeathRow Velo, was apparent. I am really psyched about it. Skinsuits are the only thing more comfortable than bib shorts if you ask me. The only bad part is I intended to buy a medium, but thought I should try on a large as well just to compare. Turns out large isn't my size either, since I ripped several stitches trying to get it on. So I got an XL and my self esteem took a big hit, but when I wore it on this evening's ride, I forgot about how fat I am and marveled at how comfortable I was.

Ok, now I know I'm not the only one who tries on their cycling gear and walks around the house. I assure you I only took the photo for the blog. =)

I will have the chance to break this one in this Saturday at the Nittany Lion Cross race. Stay tuned for photos and a race report!