Recent results, where to get those AWESOME SHIRTS!

It's been a while since posting. No good excuse except the usual - work, work and more work. It's summer time so guys are taking vacation and the remaining folks have to pick up the slack. So it goes.

I'll start with Warrior Dash. Having talked with several bike riding friends and some co-workers about this event I decided that "sure, why not?" was the way to go. It was fun, hot and very muddy. Challenging as well. I wasn't sure how to pace myself for such an event so I think I ran a bit conservatively in some parts but it worked out. I placed 29th out of 620 in my age group on Sunday, 3-June-2012. Which put me the overall standings as 219th out of 6,774. Not bad, I'll take it!

Two weeks ago was the Lake Hope Mountain Bike Race. My first MTB race ever, and I was indeed the only monkey to try it on a cyclocross bike. I cued up with the Novices and took 9th overall with a 5th in my age group. Not bad, I'll take it.

While the results seem pretty decent I also see that I have many areas for me to work on so I'll keep this short as I need to get work and riding done. Well, there'e the coffee-drinking to be done as well.

Last bit of info: Several people have seen me at races or whatever with my "Die First Then Quit" shirt & have asked me where someone would get such a thing. I had them whipped up at CafePress so here's the link:
http://www.cafepress.com/hughjasseclothing . There will be several more designs coming out in the future. It's an idea I've been knocking around for a while. If you need a reminder to get going, or you think other people need a direct form of motivation, then here you go!

Thanks again for reading. I look forward to your photos of what you're doing when wearing these shirts.

Not good enough?

Here’s my little secret for today: I’m not really that good at a lot of things. I was never a great athlete as a kid. Oh, I played a lot of pick up sports and wrestled in High School but I wasn’t great. I never was any good at wearing the “cool” clothes.  I really wanted to look cool and wear that stuff but on me those things just looked… not right. I was a decent student at school but not the best. When it comes to writing I am slow to get started and irregular (if you’ve been keeping up here, you know what I mean). As a person, I have a lot of faults. When it comes to racing bikes I will certainly not be any competition for Lance Armstrong.

In fact, by not thinking I was good enough was my mental block from doing a lot of things. I didn’t jump in to cyclocross or any bike racing for several years because I thought “I’m not good enough”. When I played guitar it took Nick Riff hearing some of my music and asking me to be part of his band – an idea I never would have approached before because I thought my guitar playing was not good enough.  There are a lot of things that I didn’t try or at the least, held off from trying for a long while because I thought I wasn’t good enough.

Don’t let thinking that you are not good enough stop you from doing something you really want to do. It’s been a gradual revelation to me. Once you say “So what?” and do it anyways, you will find out you will probably exceed your expectations. There’s nothing like throwing yourself in a situation where it’s sink or swim. Often times you find that you can swim. Many times you find that you can swim much better that you thought.

And if you don’t perform all that well, what then? Unless you’ve decided to go running with the bulls or naked skydiving with no instruction I think you’ll be fine. Decide to start a band and no one shows up? Or better yet, you start with a bar full of folks and after song number three they all have wandered off? I know that feeling. It’s definitely a bummer but it’s not the end of the world. You didn’t lose a limb. Decide to enter a mud run and realize you just can’t run that much? Guess what? Neither can a lot of people who’ve already entered. Coming in dead last is a blow to the ego but hey, YOU tried. Use it as motivation for the next event. Besides that, even by coming in dead last you are still way ahead of those who did NOT even try.

Don’t think you’re good enough? Need a push? Check out these folks:

Chris, who wrote the book “The $100 start up” that’s been changing many lives has a good starting point here: The Art of Non-Conformity - Qualifications

Need a kick in the pants? Joel is where I turn to when I’m feeling like hanging it up or saying “fuggedaboutit”: The Blog of Impossible Things

How about this? How about “How to stop sucking and be awesome instead”? (geared more toward software writers but as a general idea it’s great stuff)

You might need training or practice. So what. Quit worrying if you’re good enough to accomplish “X”. You already are good enough.  

My first bike

The first bike is usually one where you discover the world at a speed faster than your legs can take you. You can now go further as well. Almost like becoming the Six Million Dollar Man.

Mine was a Murray 20" single-speed designed like a "British three-speed" as we folks in the U.S. dubbed them. I liked it great for the first year (I was 6) but the next year I wanted a BMX bike. All the cool kids had BMX bikes. So what happed? The next year, my Dad made my rather pedestrian bike into a BMX bike. He spread the stays in the back so it had room for a big knobby tire, repainted it black, made me a number plate. He bought motocross (motorcycle) handlebars and cut them down to fit me better. Dad put a lot of effort into transforming this perfectly good bike into something his son wanted.

Bu I was upset when he first showed it to me. I did appreciate what my Dad did (sort of) but it just wasn't the same. I wanted a new bike. This was not a new bike. This was not much like the other kids bikes with the springs on the front forks and such. But as time went on I began to love that bike. It had a bit steeper gearing than the other kids' bikes so I could get a better top-end speed. It also made it easier for me to do wheelies with. I rode that bike everywhere, jumped it over any ramp we could rig up, learned to ride wheelies down the block. I eventually delivered newspapers on it for a couple years.  

We did a lot of tweaks and modifications to that bike. Dad thought it’d be cool to add a 3-speed crank thing to it. It was sort-of cool. Multiple speeds! Go faster! But I don’t think this device was ever designed to take the sort of abuse a boy who’s hero was Evel Knievel. It didn’t always shift right. I broke the right crank arm several times. My father had my uncle weld it together a couple of times but after the third time it was plain to see that we just needed to go back to the original crank. I also had a parade of banana seats, sissy bars, “motocross” seats and such.

When it was time to retire that bike I don’t think I really gave it much thought or appreciation. I had broken the crank once again (but some years later). By this time I had a “real” bike. It was a blazing yellow 10-speed. Hey, I was growing up, I needed a grown-up bike! I was also not far from driving, too. Who needs a bike when you have a totally awesome bone-stock rusty ’73 Nova hatchback? But looking back with all the benefits on hindsight on that bike that my Dad modified for me, that may be what lead me to my passion for being on two wheels.

Dad, I'm sorry I was ungrateful at first. I loved that bike.

Cyclocross is for crazy people.

What is cyclocross? What is it about?

For thsoe who don't know much about it, Cyclocross is nuts. In all honesty it really is. The season starts in the fall and runs through the winter. When all the other cyclist are putting their bikes up until the weather gets warm again, cyclocross racers are just starting. Rain? Snow? Mud? C-c-c-cold? Yep, whatever it’s doing outside the ‘cross racers head out into it. Master’s World Championships were held in Louisville this year in the middle of January and the final round of races were held on “frozen muddy ruts”. Cyclocross uses bikes that are pretty much road bikes with tires that are a bit wider – say, 33mm wide instead of 23mm wide with a little bit of tread – and ride mostly off-road. Sure, there’s some pavement but there’s also sand, grass, single-track, hills or stairs steep enough that you are faster to run up and the infamous barriers. Barriers are usually found in groups of two or three forcing most racers off their bikes to hop off, run over the barriers, toss the bike down, hop on and pedal away as fast as you can. All of this done on a course no longer than 2 miles for a time of no more than an hour. The end result is pretty much an all-out sprint. Go right up until you’re about to puke and then back off just enough so you can maintain that effort for 45 minutes to an hour.  Add to this the atmosphere where heckling the racers is encouraged, costumes are common and beer hand ups are practiced (just try chugging a cheap beer while you are so far in the red zone you can hardly see straight). So I think you can see what I mean by “nuts”.

 

Halloween race at Uncle Steve's. Photo courtesy of Noah Hutson



I tell people that cyclocross can be explained two ways. It’s a lot like when you were 8 or 9 years old and you got together with your friends on your bikes. Someone would say “OK, we go down the sidewalk, up the driveway at Tommy’s house, around the car, around the tree in his front yard, over the fence…”

Or you could explain ‘cross as in the early 1900’s several French guys were drinking too much wine late in one fall and talking “We should host a bicycle race…”

“Yes, let’s do that. It should be really hard”

“Yes, Yes! (Oui! Oui!) We will make them take their bicycles built for the road and race it in the fields and forest. We should also put the logs right in their path.”

“Oh yes, that would be excellent! And it should be when the weather is horrible outside”

“Agreed! But we should get them drunk first so they will be much more agreeable to race.”

So if it could possibly be miserable out why would anyone want to do it? I explain it as being like heroin in this manner: Right after your first race you’ll be sick and want nothing more to do with it. But 20 minutes later you’ll be jonesing for more and more. You may even decide to race in a second category that very same day. You will now be hopelessly addicted. In several months you’ll end up with an identical bike and three sets of wheels for each bike (each set having course-specific tread) as long as your wallet and/or significant other allow.

Larry P at Uncle Steve's Halloween race. Photo courtesy Noah Hutson.

Besides, what drives people to do any sort of activity that is difficult, strenuous, challenging or just plain hard?

Why not?

Thank you, father. Thank you, son.

I write this on the anniversary of our son's death (four years ago) and a little over a month since my father has passed.

Dad became quite ill (neuroendocrine cancer) in a short time. Not so sure what to say about it really. All the usual things I'm sure - it sucks. Feels like it shouldn't have happened. He got short-changed. It really does. But he's not the only one to loose his fight with cancer, or another illness. Many people also succumb in auto accidents, earthquakes and other tragedies. No matter how unfair it seems that my Dad is not here, I'm not the only son missing his father.

It seems like most people have one of two stances on their fathers - either the guy was a real jerk or he was a good man. I find myself strongly in the camp of the later. Mind you, I'm not the only one. He was intelligent, thoughtful and very detail-oriented. Calm, rational, and yes I can probably attribute some of my odd sense of humor to him. There is a lot I could say about him (and probably will as time goes on). The world is minus one very good person.

As for James, our son, if you've read much of this blog you probably know his story. If not, feel free to start at the beginning.

Tonight I find myself missing both of these men. I have leaned a tremendous amount from each. Not sure that I could be 1/10th of the man of either James or Dad. Thanks to both for the memories, the lessons, the stories and love.

It's the off season... but I'm always off.

Well, for Cyclocross it's considered the off-season. I thought I was doing pretty good, too. Got Mark Farmer whipping me... er, coaching me. Getting to ride a bit more consistantly. Got a plan this year. Thought I was doing OK and then, one of my nemesis went back to road racing this year. Gasp. But I'm still putting the work in. For a while, that was.

Then we've had some health issues in the family. Something pretty drastic, really. Drastic enough to make you say "The rest of this crap can wait."

It doesn't mean I've stopped riding. I just don't get to ride as often as originally planned. Not a big deal. Family is a much much bigger deal.

So instead of a hard 2 hour ride, I may go for a 2 1/2 hour ride on the bike path through the metroparks with my bride. For example, last Saturday evening when we went by a couple ponds the peepers - frogs - were so loud it was astounding. We get around a bend in the path and she counts a baker's dozen of whitetail in the meadow.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Marietta, OH for a week. The temperatures in Ohio have gotten to what we normally see in June, not the beginning of March. It was interesting to ride around and find pockets of temperature differences. A breeze may blow in and it felt like the temp would drop 10 degrees F. Or I'd make it to the top of a long steep climb and you could feel the temp get warmer and drier where the sun had been beating down on the pavement all day.

So I don't get to ride as often as some of my competitors nor is every ride a full-on training ride. But on and off the bike, I'm going for more memorable moments. I hope you do as as well.

Thanks for reading.

What do we do when we do what we do?

Several photos from a recent ride. Basically, I had the bike in the car with me and was travelling from Morgantown, WV to Parkersburg, WV. It was a rare time when I could take a bit of time to get to where I was going. So I took advantage of the semi-nice weather and pulled off of Route 50, got out of the car and rode some of the North Bend Rail Trail.

With all of the rain we've had in the months prior, the ground was still pretty soft. It was pretty much riding on wet sand. So I guess it was more of a workout than a pleasure ride but it was still cool to get outside. After all, you don't see these things from the highway.

One of many tunnels. This one is 377 ft. long. Bring a light. Pretty cool.



This you don't really see from the trail. You have to wander around a bit.



Different ride. Chestnut Ridge MTB trail. See you out there.