"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)

“[Trophies] to all my friends!” - Henry Chinaski (Mickey Rourke), Bar Fly

Nineteen (19) HRRT members raced at the 2015 edition of the Hardcore 24 (HC24). The nineteen riders organized themselves into six (6) teams, covering five (5) race categories. Every single HRRT member ended up on a podium with a trophy – not just a participation trophy, a trophy that was earned. Just as Henry Chinaski explained in Barfly "… anybody can be a non-drunk. It takes a special talent to be a drunk – It takes endurance.” the same is true for mountain biking. Anybody can be a non-24 hour racer. It takes a special talent to be a 24 hour racer.

More than anything I am deeply appreciative to the Hardcore 24 race promoters, lead by Mark (Swarty) Swarthout, for continuing to open-heartedly support a race format that uniquely caters to a diverse community of riders: first-timers to the hardened endurance racer; hammer-heads to the stop-and-smell-the-roses pleasure rider; three generations of riders all riding the same course over the same twenty-four hour period, all kicked off with a Friday evening bike parade to the overlook to watch the sunset. It is a perfect pairing with HRRT's philosophy of building a cycling community. Lucky for me, it's also my favorite race format. The most common first response to a displayed interest in 24 hour mountain bike racing is “you must be crazy.” Henry Chinaski says "Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead."

As for my five person mixed team, it was a wild ride well before the clouds burst open and turned the newly sculpted trails into a giant seven mile long slip and slide. Ten days before the race, during the HRRT HC24 kickoff party, we had secured our final two team members. The day before the race, we were again short two team members. On race day morning I was able to shanghai a runner and a father of a HRRT junior rider to once again fill out the team – just two hours to the starting bell.

The runner, we'll call her Erin since that's her name, was at the HC24 supporting a friend who was riding with another of the HRRT teams. Erin was planning on having a nice relaxing weekend with only an eight mile training road run planned for Sunday. Erin, however, could not resist the lure of the HC24 goody bag: a $10-of-food coupon from the Marty’s Meat truck, a HC24 sponsor swag raffle ticket worth who knows what, a very collectible HC24 tie dyed t-shirt, a jar of peanut butter, and a chance at a coveted HC24 podium spot and a trophy. The peanut butter was the clincher.

Tom, on the other hand, just needed to have a foot size close to anyone with an extra pair of shoes – 9-1/2. Bingo! Tom (owner of Chatham Brewery and a proud sponsor of HRRT) and Sara had stopped by the HC24 to drop off their son and then planned to spend a couple days touring the Finger Lake's country-side. Tom and Sara agreed to Tom riding the first lap for our team – just a short four hour delay to their weekend plans.

Lastly, it was just the matter of selling the concept of allowing Erin to run a lap for our team. Swarty agreed. We had our final roster: three old men, each nursing a shoulder injury, a sponsor with no riding equipment of his own, and a runner willing to substitute a trail run for her planned road run.

Three up, three down. Tom did the first lap, as was agreed, and was off to enjoy what was left of his weekend touring the Finger Lakes. Erin then took the baton and ran a lap. After the lap, Erin couldn't put on her running shoes for the rest of the day. Chuck went third, bounced off a tree, and by the end of his lap could no longer grip a handle bar with his left hand. Or shift. Or brake. The other Don and I took the reins and figured we had a long rest-of-the-day ahead of us.

You know when you're speeding along on an express subway train late at night and all there is to break the monotony of the darkened tunnel and the random passing of a forgotten construction bulb, is the periodic subway platform with its florescent lights and signage, and your brain, like a camera, trying to capture all the information that it can before the shutter closes. That's how I remember the balance of the 24 hours. I remember Don and I agreed to double up on laps so that we could get some rest time between turns. I remember Tom reappeared out of nowhere around 7PM to contribute two more laps. I remember feeling a drop of rain and recalling that the forecast had predicted rain by 1AM. I remember the long-haired hippie dude at 2AM saying “sleep is for the weak”. I remember crawling into my car at 3AM to get some desperately needed sleep because I was getting weak and Jen was going to wake me at 4AM to do a lap together. I remember riding a couple of laps with Jennifer one at sunrise – a total treat. I remember turning in my ankle bracelet timing chip. I remember being handed a trophy and a bottle of wine and thinking life is really good.

Henry Chinaski says, “This is a world where everybody's gotta do something. Y'know, somebody laid down this rule that everybody's gotta do something, they gotta be something. You know, a dentist, a glider pilot, a narc, a janitor, a preacher, all that.” This weekend, my something was a 24-hour racer.

See more photos here