"The Elm City"

New Haven had the first public tree planting program in America, producing a canopy of mature trees (including some large elms) that gave New Haven the nickname "The Elm City".

Have I mentioned how cyclocross is starting to feel like a family sport? Four of us started together: Tommy, Dan, Scott and me. All friends, all competing at a comparable level – for now. I can visualize Tommy and Scott leaving the old farts, me and Dan, in the dust very soon. It just so happens Tommy and I had the field cover in age. I was the oldest at 59 and Tommy was the youngest at 14.

All four of us had a fabulous start. I dare venture to say we made up four of the top twenty at the end of the first lap (based on photographic evidence). I'll never know for sure though, as lap times are not posted.

Lap two was a different story for me. I had sneaked by Tommy at the top of the lap's long uphill grind by taking an inside line on the 180 turn at the grind's top.  Attempting to put some distance between Tommy and me by taking the accompanying long down grade a bit too aggressively, I pinched my front tube on a root. Loosing tire pressure in my front wheel, I lost control and went down on one of the several ball bearing turns. Ball bearing turn is the term used for the many course redirects located under the several Oak trees that seam to have had a bumper crop of acorns this year (maybe they should have called it “The Oak City”). Sliding on the ground covered with acorns may qualify as an in-situ sports message but that wasn't my primary interest at the time. Tommy was bearing down on me and I needed to roll out of his way. It was the family thing. Though I was trying to finish ahead of Tommy, I felt a family obligation to not impede his standing relative to all other racers on the course (nor did I want to get run over). I actually apologized for crashing in front of him as he safely passed by.

As bad as a fall in a roll bearing turn may sound, it had it's up-side. This particular turn was

GG - Stunningly Gorgeous

right before the pit – a few bike lengths in front of the pit. My back-up bike was right in front of me – right where Jen had put it before my race. I grabbed GG and headed out of the pit after Tommy. GG is the name of my pit bike which happens to be Jen's stunningly gorgeous (modifier added by Jen) gravel grinder bike that she let's me use as a pit bike. It's that family thing again. It took me a full lap to get the feel of GG – I ride in a much more aggressive race position than Jen and my center of gravity is located differently than Jen's – add the two together and I've got a situation where I really need to concentrate on keeping weight on the front wheel.

Over the next three laps I clawed my way back to Tommy's wheel. My plan was to once again pass him at the top of the long uphill grind. It didn't happen. I started up the hill right behind Tommy. I put my head down and attacked the hill. When I lifted my head at the top, Tommy was no where in sight. Evidently Tommy had shot up the hill – he obviously had the same plan as me and everyone else. The problem for me was that Tommy executed the plan better than everyone else. What a great season closer race! All four of us, the family, finished within seconds of each other – high fives and congrats all the way around.

Postscript: I got pulled over on the way home – 45 in a 20. Twenty, what's a twenty? Is that construction on blind curves into a school zone? I'd be passed by Tommy riding his cross bike with a flat tire at that speed. Anyway, as I was looking for my registration and insurance card I mentioned that Jen had won her race that afternoon. The officer, bless his heart, stated that he was passing on Jen's good fortune and gave me a warning. This added significantly to the day's cash payout. This race season just keeps getting better.

See more at: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/2015_elm_city_cx

"Call me Ishmael."...

I was lined up behind Andrew. Tim was in the next row behind me and off to the right. There were a few other familiar faces in the bull pen. Go. Lots of contact and lots of chance taking at the start. This is Category 4/5 racing.

The Warwick NBX Grand Prix race course was very different this year. The start was an abbreviated version of last year, putting us into the woods much quicker with fewer corners to sort the wheat from the chaff. Last year the woods were littered with roots concealed within a skim-coat of mud. This year’s course was dry. All the roots laid out on a platter for ease of negotiation.

Tim passed me on the outside before we hit the woods. He had taken his usual early lead

and I had my first rabbit. Last year there was a trough of mud at the end of the woods acting as a speed governor. This year, being smooth, dry and very fast, everyone was spit out of the woods at full speed into a set of curves and through a converging-diverging nozzle accelerating racers to supersonic velocities directly into a 180 degree reversal with everyone, including a flat barred mountain biker, on the attack forty-five seconds into the race. This is Category 4/5 racing.

Last year's course went straight up a sandy eroded double track. This year, the course designers started us up the double track then diverted us off to the left so that we could be brought back across perpendicular to the eroded double track creating an eight foot wide by four foot deep  whoop-de-do.  Whoop-de-do! There was a racer pile up in the whoop-de-do on the first lap. This is Category 4/5/racing. Tim and I maintained contact past the pileup.

All of us Category 4/5 racers had pretty much sorted ourselves out by the end of the first lap. The race within the race was entirely evident at this point. Tim and me; mono e mono. Tim pretty much attacked at every opportunity – I waited for the up-grades to try to power past. I have no idea how many times we traded position. I only know that the cheers for me were either immediately preceded or followed by “Go Tim”. It was that tight the entire race. It was a race where whoever made the first mistake lost. Unfortunately for Tim, his mistake came at exactly the wrong time – at the last set of barriers before a couple of turns, a straightaway, a wimpy chicane and a right hand turn to a 70 yard finish.



“...to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee.” ― Herman Melville, Moby-Dick











More photos here: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/2015_nbx_warwick

I'm a mudder

I feel at home in slop. Trails turned to organic soup. Clinging, gluey, gooey, gummy, tacky, tenacious, viscid, viscous mud. Maybe because when I started mountain biking, fifteen years ago, I had to bike when I could regardless of the weather. It was normal to start a ride in the rain. Maybe it's because of my 24hr racing experience. Again when it was my turn to take a lap, I took a lap regardless of the conditions – and there have been some really nasty conditions.

This year's Supercross had some nastiness. The nastiness, I believe, helped me pull off adecent Masters finish. I found myself racing with a group that was different than the usual suspects.  My rabbit was a racer I've never finished close enough to to even be listed as a nemeses in Crossresults. The closest I've ever finish to this rabbit was eleven places back – but there he was right ahead of me on lap two. The next three laps proved to be a test of bike handling skill, quick decisions and mettle.

Supercross is held at the Anthony Wayne Recreation Area near Stony Point NY. Anthony Wayne (January 1, 1745 – December 15, 1796) was a United States Army officer, statesman, and member of the United States House of Representatives. Wayne adopted a military career at the outset of the American Revolutionary War, where his military exploits and fiery personality quickly earned him promotion to brigadier general and the sobriquet Mad Anthony. Wayne's successful attack on British positions at Stony Point, New York was the high point of his revolutionary war service. On July 16, 1779, Wayne personally led a bayonets-only night attack lasting thirty minutes. Wayne's three columns of light infantry stormed and captured British fortifications at Stony Point, a cliffside redoubt commanding the southern Hudson River. 

You're probably thinking that I'm going to draw a correlation between Mad Anthony's heroic attack and capture of the British fortifications at Stony Point and my hugely successful pursuit and overtake of my rabbit (who could very well be of British descent) at Stony Point. I'm not – I wasn't carrying a bayonet.

Last year I considered Supercross a post-season event – This year Jen and I are going the distance – we're racing in the cyclocross Nationals in Asheville NC. Jen, because she's trained, podium-ed and upgraded to Cat 3 – i.e., earned it. Me, because I had a birthday. Men's 60 and over championship racing is “open”... and I'm going to be Jen's Chauffeur. I've overheard conventional wisdom has it that the Nationals are going to be wet and nasty. Music to the ears of a mudder.

More Photos Here: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/supercross_2015

One last thought – I swear the Super cross course is designed to look like the Grinch.

A tale of two Tims

It was the best of lines, it was the worst of lines, it was the race of smarts, it was the race of foolishness, it was a lap of belief, it was the lap of incredulity, it was the run-up of hope, it was the run-up of despair, I had every Tim before me, I had no Tims before me, we were all going directly this way, we were all going directly that way. . . .

I'll call them Timothaye and Timothbee.

I asked Timothaye what hubs he was running at the one minute to start warning. He didn't answer, but I could tell I had thrown him off his game. He never-the-less sprinted away from me at the start. Timothaye is my rabbit. I line up right behind him at every opportunity. My goal is to keep Timothaye within sight. Out of the corner of my eye I saw an expected site. Timothbee passing on the outside just before we dropped off the tarmac and onto grass. So begins the conga line with both Tims ahead but in sight. Somewhere near the middle of the first lap I caught and passed Timothbee. I know this because Timothbee spun past me on the there-is-no-way-my-tires-will-hook-up-on-this-wet-grass-climb hill climb.  I could barely get traction with my mountain bike shoes – how was Timothbee riding this hill? It took me until beyond the start-finish line to catch and re-pass Timothbee. This could prove to be a real

Timothaye

problem for me.

Just ahead of Timothbee lay Timothaye. Timothaye has been accused of getting lazy in the middle of a race. I sensed that this may be one of those races. On a long waterlogged straightaway, I put my head down and hammered past Timothaye on a fruitless attempt to put some distance between the two of us. It was like waking a sleeping giant. Timothaye locked onto my wheel and attacked at every opening. I voiced to Timothaye “...there's three laps to go and plenty of racing left”. Timothaye wasn't buying it and kept attacking. He overtook me on an inside line attack and now it was my turn to hang on his wheel. I clung to Timothaye's wheel down the sick pea-gravely descent at a foolishly fast pace. Kristin Butcher recently wrote “Trails taught me that what matters most is what we choose to do with the path ahead”. Timothaye must not read Kristin Butcher because he chose the worst of lines in charging the muddy, rooty run-up. Timothaye was instantly thrown off trail and into the briers at the bottom of the run-up. That's the last I saw of Timothaye. Timothbee was hot on my heels.

Laps two and three bore out the same story: I would chase down Timothbee only to be

Timothbee

retaken on the grassy hill climb – We changed lead every lap for the first three laps. The course went straight up the grassy hill this year and I couldn't muster sufficient traction from my tires to attack, spin or finesse my way up the hill. I could barely find traction in my shoes. It was the run-up of despair for me. Timothbee road the grassy hill every lap. These three laps became the laps of calculation. How much real estate was I losing to Timothbee because of that damn grassy climb? The answer unfortunately was potentially more than I could regain to avoid a sprint finish. I'm not a good sprinter. I had to get to the top of the grassy hill before Timothbee on the last lap or I'd lose the race. My plan was simple: ride faster than I've ridden yet and smarter than I've ridden yet – sure those two go together. I hobbled past Timothbee on the muddy run-up a quarter way through the last lap. Evidentially, Timothbee was in every bit as much pain as me. It was the run-up of hope for me. The hope that I could create a gap sufficiently large that I couldn't be caught on my run-up of despair. The course from the top of the run-up to the bottom of the grassy climb is simple enough: it starts with a root littered mud hole, followed by a root infested dirt path that slithers though a wooded section of the park, then down a loose gravel s-curve drop and into a berm-ed turn. As I charged down the slithering dirt path of roots, all I could hear was the heavy breathing of the rider stuck to my rear wheel and all I could think was I'm done if I don't drop Timothbee. It was quite a surprise when the heavy breather sneaked past me and it wasn't Timothbee. The guy from Elevate cycles had followed me around Timothbee on the run-up. I owe him a big thanks – he, in his lust to overtake me, provided me with the motivation I needed to gap Timothbee. I was first to the top of the grassy hill.

It is a far, far better lap that I do, than I have ever done; and now it is a far far better rest that I go to than I have ever known. Where's my beer and chilly?

The third time's the charm - a cliché of uncertain origin.

I've raced the Cycle-smart International at Look Park in Northampton MA for the

last three years – That's my entire cyclocross career. So if there is one place that I should be able to gauge my progress as a cyclocross racer, Northampton should be it. The Northampton course itself is a relative constant. In the last three years there has been no substantial earthquakes, tsunamis, meteor strikes, or urban development in Look Park. For three years Jen and I have pre-rode the course on Friday, eaten Thai for Friday night dinner, slept at The Knoll Bed & Breakfast, had cereal for breakfast in the Look Park parking lot, warmed up using my patent routine, and ridden for the same club team. I went into the Northampton race this year somewhat hopeful that this being my third attempt, somehow I'll do better – Hmmm, when I re-read this paragraph it kinda reads like the definition of insanity.

The first time that the precursor to the cliché “the third time's the charm” appears in literature is in Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Letters addressed to R. H. Horne in 1839: ‘The luck of the third adventure’. The proverb is more explicitly stated later in Alexander Hislop's The proverbs of Scotland, 1862: "The third time's lucky", and

then exactly struck upon in Traits and stories of the Irish peasantry. By W. Carleton, Volume 1, 1877: “you've got two difficult tasks over you; but you know third time's the charm – take care of the next.” Why is the third time the charm? There are a few theories. The one I like is that it refers to the belief that under English law anyone who survived three attempts at hanging would be set free. There's a story that goes along with it – the story of John 'Babbacombe' Lee. Lee was a West Country sailor who was convicted of the murder of Emma Keyse at Babbacombe Bay in 1885. He was sentenced to hang at Exeter prison and three attempts to execute him all failed. The Home Secretary of the time, Sir William Harcourt, commuted the sentence and Lee was later freed. It's probably more likely that the phrase is just a folk belief that, having had setbacks, we ought to persevere and not give up - as immortalized in the phrase 'try, try and try again'.

Another annual event that I've attended my entire cyclocross career is the Capital District Bicycle Gala. The Gala is an HRRT sponsored event where 150 cycling enthusiasts and their friends get together to talk about all things cycling. "Is it better to have luck or better to have ability in cycling?" That was the question posed during a conversation at the 2015 Capital District Bicycle Gala. Luck or ability; which pays the highest dividends to cyclist? My last three years of Northampton race results may bear out the answer.

	2013		2014		2015
	Saturday	Sunday	Saturday	Sunday	Saturday	Sunday
Finish	72	82	70	79	73	84
Field	140	143	137	127	134	139
Percentile	0.5143	0.5734	0.5109	0.6220	0.5448	0.6043
Mean Percentile: 0.5616
Standard Deviation (S): 0.0422
Mean +/-2S: 0.4771 to 0.6461

The table of Northampton results above “clearly” (after you study it a while)

indicates that by doing the same thing over and over again in a somewhat controlled environment, I get similar results (all three finishes are within two standard deviations of the mean finish) – as I should have expected. If luck was to come into play, three attempts seems to be the right number of times to try according to Sir William Harcourt, who commuted Lee's sentence. Four is overkill (pun intended) as pointed out by W. C. Fields when he said "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no point in being a damn fool about it."

So, I'm taking W. C. Fields' advice and not be a fool about it – as the Germans proverb goes “luck sometimes visits a fool, but it never sits down with him”. I'm going to do something different next year at the 26th annual Cycle-Smart international cyclocross race. I'm not going to practice, practice, and practice again.


Photos at:  http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/2015_cyclesmart_international

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try Again. Fail again. Fail better." - Samuel Beckett

In the history of American Cyclo-cross there have been only a handful of truly majestic and storied events such as the Cyclo-cross festival held on the pristine grounds of Roger Williams Park. Roger Williams Park, in the southern part of the city of Providence, Rhode Island, is an elaborately landscaped 427-acre city park declared, by the National Trust for Historic Preservation, one of the finest urban parks in the U.S. The park is named after the founder of the city of Providence and one of the founders of the state of Rhode Island, Roger Williams. The land for the park was a gift to the people of Providence in 1871, in accordance with the will of Betsy Williams, the great-great-great-granddaughter and last surviving descendant Roger Williams. The land had been the family farm and represented the last of the original 1638 land grant to Roger Williams from Canonicus, chief of the Narragansett tribe.

Greg LeMond says "It never gets easier, you just go faster", and we all learned from the AT&T television commercial that “faster is better”. In my most recent cyclo-cross experienced I've learned that those to hypotheses intersect in an opera called the Masters race. Providence was my first “big” open masters race – fields of over one-hundred 50+ years-young racers competing head-to-head each day. And guess what – I liked it! I had a blast riding with my peers (from an age standpoint anyway). The Masters racers are good riders. I find these races more of a learning event than a race. Don't get me wrong, the competition is fierce. It's just that when the curly part of someone else's handlebars ends up on the inside the curly part of mine, in a curve and nobody panics, and nobody crashes, it just becomes a recitative of the larger opera that is the Masters race. The course was one of the most enjoyable I've ridden. The course lap was punctuated with six fly-overs, just like an opera is punctuated by arias or ariettas. I finished the five laps of the Masters race in fifty-three (53) minutes – that's like an opera having an arietta every 106 seconds. Crazy!

So how did I do? I did great. I failed better than I've failed before. I held onto my reputation as mid-pack Don In an open Master's race – both days.

More photos at: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/2015_divine_providence

William Gibson “Pattern Recognition”

“We have no future because our present is too volatile.

We have only risk management.

The spinning of a given moment's scenarios.”

The Venue: Stage Fort Park, overlooking historic Gloucester Harbor and bound on two sides by Cressey and Half Moon Beaches. Stage Fort Park offers picnic areas with barbecue pits, a beach, a full Visitor Information center, and a playground for the kids. “What is the Gran Prix of Gloucester? Take a dramatic harborfront park at the height of fall foliage season. Set up a twisting grass, dirt and asphalt racecourse with challenging obstacles. Unleash a crowd of world class cyclists to charge through the sharp curves and jump the barriers. Add screaming, cowbell ringing fans incited by a dynamic announcers. What do you have? One of the premier bicycle races in the country, right here in Gloucester.” Borrowed from http://www.gpgloucester.com/spectators.html

Gloucester was founded at Cape Ann by an expedition, called the "Dorchester Company", of men from Dorchester (in the county of Dorset, England) chartered by James I in 1623. It was one of the first English settlements in what would become the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and predates both Salem and Boston. The Dorchester Company of pioneers made landing

at Half Moon Beach and settled nearby, setting up fishing stages in a field in what is now Stage Fort Park. This settlement's existence is proclaimed today by a memorial tablet, affixed to the most prominent geological feature in the park, a large rock, some sixty feet high and two hundred wide. It was an ancient ritual stone used by Native Americans.

This weekend's ritual, the Grand Prix of Gloucester, played out in front of the ancient ritual stone, reminded me of the ritualistic annual crossing of the Mara river by herds of wildebeest migrating from the Serengeti National Park in Tanzania to the greener pastures of the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya. The wildebeest have to run the gauntlet of crocodiles lying in wait. In this particular ritual, herds of cyclocross riders run the Stage Fort Park cyclocross course with the SRAM chicane gauntlet lying in wait with its dusty ruts ready to grab your wheel and pull you down like the crocodiles of the Mara. Even the most seasoned riders, the Masters, fell victim ti the violate nature of the chicane.

As for myself; I was lucky enough, while navigating the course, to spin any given moment's scenarios into a solid 47th percentile finish both days protecting my mid-pack-Don reputation. As for Jen; along with racing, she's wondering what the Dorchester Company might have thought if they knew what was going on in Stage Fort Park the weekend of September 26 and 27, 2015, or what the Indians would have thought of the ritual that was happening in front of their ancient ritual stone.

More photos at: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/gran_prix_of_gloucester_2015

*Coleridge's “Ancient Mariner”

Like one who, on a lonely road,

Doth walk in fear and dread,

And, having once turned round, walks on,

And turns no more his head;

Because he knows a frightful fiend,

Doth close behind him tread.*

Kirkland has become my cyclocross season opener. The course rode substantially the same as the previous year. I did my typical cyclocross race prep: old fashion oatmeal with nuts and berries; a thirty minute warm-up; and GU. Works every time. However, for the first time I did forget to check tire pressures.

I pulled 35 millimeter file-tread gravel grinder tires off my Iron Cross wheels the night before the Kirkland race. The tire pump I use to inflate and seat the beads of my race tires doesn’t have an accurate pressure gauge. “No problem, I'll top it off tomorrow at the race” I told myself. A quarter of the way through the first lap I jammed my wheel at an obtuse angle into the course's grassy v-notch depression (which happened to be rock-hard due to the lack of any significant precipitation). The result was the sound of tire side knobs ratcheting against a fork blade with the sensation of a tire rolling off the wheel's bead.

I tend to obsess over things like proper tire inflation, being in the right gear for the start and ensuring that my car doors are locked. Evidently two of these three obsessions are somehow interconnected within my brain. Jen and I had parked our car near the HRRT team tent in the morning making the locking of car doors unnecessary. Not having to lock the car doors threw my routine off enough that I forgot to check my tire pressure. I remain dumbfounded that I didn't notice my lack of suitable tire pressure during my warm-up. Luckily, this particular race circuit has no root littered traverses. That's probably why the lack of “proper” tire inflation went unnoticed until I jammed my wheel into the v-notch. Here's where I benefit from the virtues of racing on Stan's wheels. Stan's wheels are hands-down the most solid wheels I've ever raced. I truly torture my wheels. The expectations I have of my wheels are second to no other component of my bike. Stan's are the FedEx^® of wheels, they deliver. They delivered me out of the other side of the depression unscathed. The tire stayed on the bead for the entire race, even though I was racing on very under-inflated tires, making resorting to the pit bike unnecessary.

I race by the rabbit philosophy; early in the race pick someone to pace who challenges you to ride hard. If I happen to catch and pass, or get dropped by my rabbit, I choose anew. In this particular race I was fortunate. My rabbit was someone I highly admire for his cycling abilities. I sat on his wheel for two and a half laps and studied. I did what he did. I followed his lines and matched his cadence. My race entry fee became the best money I've spent on personalized cyclocross instruction.

Twice I put a pedal onto the turf causing me to momentarily lose, without incident, the rear of my bike. In my mind, that's a tribute to the Colnago I race on. Ernesto Colnago has been building bike frames since 1952 - four years before I was born. I consider myself a beneficiary of the sixty-three years of Italian cycling heritage that come with a Colnogo frame.

I would have been happy to just maintain close contact with my rabbit (who was also racing on a Colnago) to the finish. As chance would have it, however, opportunity knocked in the forth lap, in the sand pit. The heavy sand induced a leftward trajectory in my rabbit’s bike, availing me of a clear inside line to take the lead with a substantial advantage. I rode the last lap and a half exactly as I pictured my rabbit would have. For like the Ancient Mariner I dared not look back for I know my rabbit doth close behind me tread. I was able to keep the lead through the finish.

A post-race tire inflation check, for posterity's sake, reveled that I had raced with 19.1psig in the front tire and 20.9psig in the rear tire.

More photos at: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/kirkland_2015

“Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which, in prosperous circumstances, would have lain dormant.” ~ Horace 65-68 B.C. ~

This is the third running of the ADK 80K in which Jen and I have participated. I had to sit back and ask myself what did I do differently to make this year’s event unique. It didn't come to me right away. After a period of reflection upon this year’s effort and more important, after a presentation at work it became clear; I've been working on my cycling experience efficiency or as I call it Psyclofficiency.

Psyclofficiency is the cross product of cycling efficiency (Cyclefficiency) and the Riding Environment represented by the equation: ƞ_p = ƞ_c X E_r where ƞ_c is Cyclefficiency and is E_r the Riding Environment. I'm still working out exactly how the right-hand rule thingy applies.

Regular old, every day efficiency (ƞ) is the ratio of E_in (energy in) to E_out (useful work out). The difference between E_in and E_out being process losses (inefficiencies; e.g., friction, waste, etc.). Reduce the losses and efficiency goes up. Psyclofficiency follows the same principle. GET THE MOST FUN OUT OF A RIDE by reducing losses such as; drive times, crappy unsuitable trails, mechanical issues, unfavorable weather, etc.

Let’s start with an example: Jen just suggested that we hop onto our totally tricked out and dialed cross bikes; pedal the scenic bike path over to Colony Town Park where there is a totally appropriate for cross bikes and expertly crafted network of single track trails adjacent to the Mohawk River; cherry-pick the best of the totally awesome single track trails; and then pedal home to totally satisfy our two hour endurance paced cycling training goal. Hell yeah! That's exactly what I'm talking about – Psyclofficiency.

Historically, Jen and I have raced the ADK 80K on cyclocross bikes. The word, “historically” forces me onto a short tangential train of thought that I will now share. Bike, is without question, my favorite off road cycling magazine. It has recently dawned upon me that the contributors of Bike and I exist in some kind of weird parallel universe space-time structure. Each month as I read Bike I re-live cycling experiences of my own. I'm talking utterly transported to an enormously similar time-space experience – possibly proof of the multiverse. I must write Bike about it someday.

As I was saying, traditionally, Jen and I have raced the ADK 80K mountain bike race on cyclocross bikes. Not this year. I ask myself why the departure from tradition. I'm not saying that we didn't ride bikes, we did. Besides the fact that cars, trains, horses and mopeds will

not fit the course single track and there's not been sufficient flooding to swim the course, as the chart¹ indicates, the bicycle is the most efficient (i.e. most useful work out for the energy in) means of transporting a living breathing human body from point A to point B. What we did is analyze the course and choose the best bike for the task at hand – hard tail mountain bike. To get the most Psyclofficiency, we now need to minimize losses. Since the race course is fixed (the ADK 80K course at 8:00am on August 30, 2015), we maximized the environment E_r by pre-riding the day before, having a fabulous dinner in Lake Placid, and staying over until Monday to do some stand-up paddling. The other factor of Psyclofficiency that we can influence is Cyclefficiency (ƞ_c).

Cyclefficiency, like regular old efficiency, is directly propositional to productivity; the effectiveness of a system in transforming inputs into outputs. In this case the “system” is a machine, a tool containing one or more parts that uses energy to perform an intended action. Let's think about this for a moment. A bicycle by itself contains more than one part and can be thought of as a system. In the Cyclefficiency case, however, I consider the machine a two part system – one part cycle and one part cyclist. So simply stated, Cyclefficiency is dependent on how well suited for the terrain and maintained is the cycle and how well trained, rested, and nutrition-ed is the cyclist. At this point in the analysis I need to separate the system variable from the system constants – I'm the variable. Sponsors are the constants.

Constants: I run Stan's wheels on all my race bikes. Stan's are rock solid, point and shoot, don't even think about the consequences wheels. I lube my drive train with ProGold's Xtream chain lube for a silent, screamingly frictionless transmission of power. I hydrate with indispensable GU Electrolyte Brew from a never fail Polar bottle. I don a Squadra Pro Issue kit that fits like a second skin except for the fact that is removes moisture more efficiently than may actual skin. Finally I recover with a beverage scientifically design by Chatham Brewing to quench my thirst no matter the situation.

Variables: What are the variables associated with the cyclist? Is it the oatmeal I ate an hour ago followed by a T-15 minute GU Roctane? I think it's more than that. I think it's every little minuscule thing I've done to prepare for this race to minimize variability, I pre-rode the course with multiple race steads to both quantitatively and qualitatively evaluate which combination of cycle-cyclist results in the most optimum machine. There's a new trail that goes straight up for a ways, crossed the apron of a pine tree and then steepened from there. Lots of discussion ensued about whether to burn matches climbing the new trail on or off the bike. There were advantages and disadvantages to both. (Turns out it didn’t matter, as I was stuck

behind walkers for both laps.) I strictly adhered to my nutrition routine; ate a healthy dinner the night before the race; had oatmeal with nuts and berries for breakfast; downed a GU Roctane at T-15 minutes; and followed it all with a GU Gel every 45 minutes of race pace effort. Lastly, I wore my luck Swiftwick socks for the confidence they inspire and the feel of optimized power transmission between the balls of my feet and the pedals.

In summary, Psycofficiency can be boiled down to a function of two input variables: Cyclefficiency and the Riding Environment. After a very unscientific assessment, I assigned a value of 0.99 to Cyclefficiency. My gear worked perfectly, as did my nutrition. I wasted negligible time downing my mid-lap GU, was spent by the end of my second lap, and didn’t bonk. The Riding Environment also fared extremely well with a value of 0.98. The only decrement I can assess against the Riding Environment was the approximately six minutes I sent pushing my bike behind others on the new single track. Assuming the function is linear and the function variables are equally weighted, I calculate my Psyclofficiency to be 0.97 out of a possible perfect score of 1.00.

Time for a reality check. Can I conclusively say that my performance on my bike at the 2015 ADK 80K results in a Psyclofficience of 97%? Who cares? The numbers is not the important message. What's important is the philosophy of maximizing riding fun and that's what happened racing the ADK 80K again this year. Mt Van Hoevenberg continues to support the expansion of their single track network and Brian Delaney of High Peaks Cyclery continues to stitch all of that single track together into great cycling events. I can't wait to race it again next year. Cheers.

More photos at: http://www.pbase.com/j_harvey/2015_adk_80k

1) Dr. Marcia Lowe's figures of energy consumed per passenger mile (as published in "The Bicycle: Vehicle for a Small Planet" (Worldwatch Institute, 1989)