*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)