Katy Trail ride back home.

It began raining lightly as I loaded up the bike for the return trip. I was apprehensive. I hadn't expected any rain; in fact, I had postponed the trip from the previous weekend because of predicted scattered thunderstorms (it didn't rain until later, though). But I had thought this weekend was going to be dry.

Since I hadn't expected any rain, I hadn't brought any rain gear at all. I put Jacob's "soft shell" on him. But it wasn't a true "shell" at all - the fabric is like a soft shell, but it didn't have significant water-repellant ability.

For myself, I just put on my regular bike outfit - shorts and a jersey. I had a long-sleeved base layer, but I figured I would save that for when I got to feeling really miserable.

As we began on our trip back up the Katy, we passed a few riders who had left from Klondike (many of the other campers had brought bikes along, although I was the only one who biked in.) They were all bundled up in long hooded raincoats.

We hit the trail and I brought the rig up to cruising speed. The rain was coming down, not severely, but sufficient to get us wet and cold. I remember thinking to myself, "Ok, this seems bad now, but in about an hour, I'll think back about how comparably comfortable this half-soaked condition was."

Interestingly, we saw several times more bikers on Saturday, even in the rain, than we had seen on Friday night.

Thankfully, the rainshower was short-lived. By the time we got to Defiance, the rain was no longer falling. We pulled off the trail and rode to the bike shop in Defiance. At the shop, we bought a 24oz of Coke (Jacob had dropped one of our Aquafinas playing "baseball" at the camp and broken it), a couple of ponchos (just in case), and some special Jelly Belly jellybeans.

The Jelly Bellies were raspberry and blackberry flavored, and were made of a central jellybean part covered with little cruncky candy bead "seeds". Jacob wanted to get them for his mom... sweet. The whole family enjoyed trying them on the next day. Reviews were mixed.

Anyway, thumbs up to the bike shop in Defiance - they were friendly folks with clean restrooms. They do bike rentals, and they even have Ted Drewes frozen custard.

We left the bike shop and continued on our ride. Jacob decided to start singing. So we sang, There is a Fountain Filled With Blood, Grace Greater Than All Our Sin, and, On Christ the Solid Rock I Stand. I think some of the other trail users were a bit puzzled. And I was riding so hard that I barely had breath to sing.

After we had ridden for a few miles, Jacob told me to stop - he had seen an animal at the side of the trail. He said it was white, and it looked like a hedgehog or something. I figured that what ever it was would have run away by the time we got back to it, but we pulled over and walked back to see what it was. There, in the grass about 20 feet or so to the side of the trail was not a hedgehog, but the biggest mushroom I have ever seen!

It's a giant puffball mushroom!

Did you know puffballs are edible? We left this one in the woods, though.

We kept on riding. Some of the trail was like this: road and fields on one side, trees on the other.

We found two box turtles. One of them was shy and hid in his shell, but the other was much bolder and continued crawling without paying much attention to us at all.

Jacob is wearing my base layer under his "soft shell" to give him more warmth. I was plenty warm, just from pedaling.

Jacob complained that he was tired when we were about a mile and a half from the St. Charles trailhead. And before we knew it, we were back at the car, loading up!

Klondike Park Pictures

Hmm, it may take me longer to write about the Katy trip (in hours) than the whole trip lasted. Anyway, we rode around a bit on the paved trails at the park. There's a nice paved path that goes around (and slightly over, across a low bridge) a lake created by the former quarry. After we rode around the lake a couple of times, I headed up the road to the conference center. On my way, I ran into a friendly bike-mounted park ranger. Like most people, he thought our bike was pretty cool, and he asked me a few questions about tandems. I guess he was thinking of getting his own tandem. I asked him about the trail to the overlook, and he showed me what direction it was. He didn't follow me up the overlook trail.

The trail up to the overlook was really steep (I didn't have my Garmin on, so I don't know the exact grade - I bet it was over 10%.) but it was quite short. It was fun and just a little strenuous. Here are some of the sights from the overlook.



Labadie power plant on the other side of the Missouri River.

You could see really far, even on an overcast day.

Some cliffs in the background, even up on top.

Don't throw stuff over the edge!

After checking out the view, we headed back to the campground and began packing up. Right as I was taking the tent down, it began it rain...

My first criterium

Last Thursday, I entered my first on-pavement bike race. (Back when I was in Kentucky, I had raced mountain bikes some.)

The race was part of a series of races at Seward Park.

The race flyer is here:
http://www.pazzovelo.com/assets/sthursday_flyer_2007.pdf

A criterium is a short race on a short (generally less than a mile) loop. Usually the race is for some set period of time plus a couple of laps.

I raced the "A" race - the race for Category 4 and 5 racers.

...


We had been to Seward Park before. It's a pretty good-sized park, located on a peninsula on Lake Washington. Lake views abound - the scenery is fantastic. The weather was fine, too - about 65 and fairly sunny.

The race course is a 0.8 mile loop located at the top of the park. One end of the loop has a downward slope, and the other has an upward slope. There is one 140-degree hairpin curve.

Rebekah picked me up from work, and we loaded the bike on the car (I had ridden my "race bike" to work) and the whole family drove to the park and parked at the lot up by the course.

It was a nice area for kids. While I was getting situated - and trying to figure out how to get my number pinned on - Jacob was riding around the park sidewalks on his Big Wheel. It was cute to see him cruising around among all the serious racers and their high-end bicycles. (I was nervous that he was going to knock some $3k bike over on the sidewalk, but no incidents occurred.)

The race organizers offered a "first-timers" clinic, and I found it very helpful and pretty fun. About a dozen riders rode the clinic. First, we rode a few laps around the race course. This was to get us used to cornering at speed. Then, we concentrated on practicing the hairpin. We were taking the corner at around 17 mph. Once, I started pedaling halfway through, and my inside pedal struck the ground because I was leaned over so far. It wasn't a big deal; the back of the bike stepped out a bit, the rear tire grabbed again, and I continued on. I didn't realize that I had experienced pedal strike (for the first time) until after negotiating the turn.

While I was learning race skills, Stan was enjoying the swings.


As soon as the clinic was over, it was time to race. Here's a picture of us at the start. I'm on the right a few rows back in a yellow jersey and blue helmet:

The picture doesn't really capture the size of the field. There were a LOT of riders!

I had tried to prepare myself as much as possible by reading "your first crit" internet articles and getting advice from those who had raced. So I was thinking:

Dont get dropped.

Hold your line.

Stay at the front of the pack; avoid the "accordian effect"

The pace will vary - might start off fast, slow down, go fast again.

DON'T GET DROPPED!

So, I decided that my objective was to finish with the main pack of riders and try to learn what I could of race tactics. Tactics are key in road bike racing - not so much in mountain bike racing. On a mountain bike, your adversary is the course. Your level of fitness and skill at navigating the path determine how you place. On a road bike, the concept of drafting results in a need for race strategy, and the other racers become your adversaries. "Drafting", or riding behind another rider, your power requirements is decreased by up to 40%. The typical race strategy is to draft in the pack as much as possible the entire race, and save all your energy for a sprint across the line ahead of your adversaries at the finish. Sounds simple, but it's what everybody is trying to do, so it's not that easy.

There was no gun going off or starting bell. We were just told, "okay, go!" and we went. I was trying to get up in the pack quickly, but the fellow in front of me was stumbling with his pedal. In a second, he figured it out, and we got going.

A typical loop was like this: We started on a fairly straight and nearly flat section. Hard acceleration to get up to speed (mid-20's). Then an inexplicable slowing of the pack for a slight right-hand bend, and the course dipped downwards. We rocketed down to a tighter right-hand bend. Slight feathering of the brakes to keep from running into the rider in front while negotiating the turn (about 30 mph), then fairly hard acceleration out of the turn and across a wide flat stretch. We roared across the flat stretch and hit the uphill. As the course turned upwards, the lead riders slowed before the rest of the pack, making the whole pack stack up and spread out across the hill. We worked our way up the hill. Speed was moderate, effort was substantial but not extreme. I generally rode the hill seated, in the large chainring. At the top of the hill, the hairpin turn. We took the turn very slowly each time - the clinic skills were wasted. Then it was back to the straightaway. Lather, rinse, repeat... for a half an hour.

In the end, the best advice was from my buddy from work who also rode the race with me. "It's like a Tuesday night ride," he said. And he was right. The intensity was manageable. I fulfilled my goal of staying with the pack. Rebekah said I was about 1/3 back in the pack at the finish.

Entering the race, I was afraid that I wouldn't have the fitness needed to hang on and that I'd be off the back of the pack within a couple of laps. Instead, I felt that my fitness was adequate, but that I need to learn more racing skills, and that I need to relax more on the bike.

Here's a Jewish (?) guy watching us climb the hill.