Some Christmas Pictures

Earlier this week, my family ventured to San Francisco for an afternoon in the city.  After making a specific point of bringing my camera, upon arriving in SF, I realized I forgot the SD memory card (it was still plugged into the card reader on my laptop).  Luckily, Walgreen's sells 2-GB SD memory cards for $9.99, so I was back up and running after a quick visit to the photo department at a neighborhood Walgreen's.

What could be better than a sculpture with a big toothy grin?

On the way from the Embarcadero to the restaurant where we had lunch, we walked past some interesting sculptures.  I couldn't resist taking a photo of this one (pictured above).

After lunch, we walked over to the Yerba Buena Center, where I snapped this fountain shot.

My camera has confused its identity with that of a fish.

On Christmas Eve, my family took part in a strange holiday tradition.  We go listen to a live concert with a room full of strangers.  My sister was feeling a bit under the weather, and we thought it would be rude to give the gift of cold/flu/who-knows-what to a group of strangers on Christmas Eve, so only a subset of us went this year.

Before going to the music-with-strangers event, I pedaled my bike up Old La Honda Road and down 84 back to the bay-side of the peninsula.  Part way up Old La Honda, I stopped to take a picture that any cyclist (but track racers in particular) should appreciate.

Just when you think you have done about the right amount of climbing for the day.

Back in the USA

This blog post covers the remainder of my trip to the UK and Europe, and then some of the adventures upon returning to the USA.

One of the last spots I visited in Berlin was the Olympic stadium.  It was cold and gray, but an interesting sight.

My camera battery died at the Berlin Olympic stadium.  The charger stayed in Manchester, so there were no further pictures taken in Germany.

For a final meal in England, I joined David and Liz for fish, chips, and mushy peas.  The next morning, it was back to the Manchester airport to begin the return journey to San Francisco by way of Atlanta.

Fact: There is a Cavendish Road in Altrincham, UK.  It is not the fastest road in the world.

After returning to the SF bay area, I helped my family find, buy, and bring home a Christmas tree.  Here are the Christmas tree and I in the front yard.

It turns out that overhead squatting a Christmas tree is not terribly difficult.  The awkward part is taking it from on the ground to overhead.

I spent a couple days in the SF bay area, adjusting to the jet-lag, going on bike rides, doing laundry, unpacking my bags from the UK/Europe trip, going to Defiance Crossfit, and generally getting into and/or staying out of trouble.

Then, it was back to the airport to catch a flight to Fargo, North Dakota for a few days at my grandma's house to knock out a list of home maintenance chores before we both flew back to California for Christmas. 

In Fargo, I visited Crossfit 701 for five WODs during my visit.  They are a new (about 3 months since opening) Crossfit gym on Fargo's south side.  On Friday evening, they did a "Wildcard WOD" where everyone picked a workout from a deck of cards.  I picked TABATA squats (20 seconds of air squats followed by 10 seconds of rest, for 8 rounds or a total of 4 minutes) where the "rest" was sitting at the bottom of the squat position.  My legs remained sore through Wednesday of this week.  Thankfully, I did not pull the "Filthy 50" card, since I did that one at Defiance while I was in California.

Crossfit 701 lived up to what my mental picture of a CF gym in Fargo would be like.

There was a bit of snow and some not-so-terrible cold while I was there in Fargo.  One day, my grandma and I went to the Sons of Norway in Fargo for lunch.  Who would have thought that my grandma could have a taco salad for lunch at the Sons of Norway in Fargo?!?

The Sons of Norway is not the most spectacular building in Fargo (ok, well, it might be the most spectacular building in Fargo), but is a good place to go for a nice hot lunch on a cold December afternoon.

When I was packing for my trip to Fargo, I wanted to make sure everything fit in a single carry-on bag.  So, I neglected to bring a razor or shaving cream.  Luckily, in case my chin whiskers went out of control during the visit, there was a solution readily available across the street from grandma's house.

If Chuck Norris can ride a bear through a car wash as a substitute for bathing, I should be able to stick my chin in a wood chipper as a substitute for shaving.

Germany!

Since the last week of track league in Manchester was canceled for track repairs, I decided to take a side trip to Germany for Christmas markets, tasty German food, German beers, and some bitter cold weather.  That, and I figured with the recent terrorist threats in Germany, at least they wouldn't attack while I'm around.

So, on Wednesday I headed to the Manchester airport and boarded an EasyJet flight to Germany.  For those who have never flown EasyJet, it is a bit like Con Air, but without the convicts.  There are no seat assignments, so it is a first-come first-served free-for-all to find a nice place to rest one's rear for the duration of the flight.

I boarded near the end of the queue, but still managed to find an emergency exit row seat.

We were delayed close to an hour before the plane took off (the de-icing queue was rather long) but I figured the three hours I had budgeted to get from the airport to the train station in Hamburg should be enough.

Sure enough, it was!  I even had time to eat a small snack in the food court in the Hamburg Hauptbahnhof, and take a few pictures.

The Hamburg Hauptbahnhof is festive at Christmastime.

From Hamburg, I took the train to Berlin, a city that seems to only sleep when the sun is up (?!?).

Due to the recent terrorist threats, the German parliament building (also known as the Reichstag) is closed to visitors, but I walked around the outside and took what I thought to be a nice picture in the evening.

The Reichstag at night!

Before going out to a house party the other night, a group of us were sitting around doing puzzles.  I breezed through the first two puzzles (one where four wood blocks are arranged to form a square, and another where 6 foam puzzle pieces are arranged to form a cube), and was offered a chance to try the third puzzle which nobody had solved (since the current owner owned it).

The following picture shows the result.

Evidently I am not as dumb as I look.

At the house party, a somewhat hilarious situation arose.  I was waiting in the queue for the toilet when a guy who was obviously in dire need of a bathroom visit came bouncing up.  Not wanting a puddle on the floor, we let him proceed to the front of the queue and he zipped in and shut the door rapidly behind him.  A moment later, all of us standing in the hall noticed something odd, which I then captured in a picture:

Can you tell what is odd in this picture?

It looked to us like our friend had caught his belt in the door in his haste to close it.  This in turn conjures up all kinds of delightful images of what is happening on the other side of the door.  Is is standing there, back against the door, trying to arc a shot into the toilet on the far side of the bathroom?  Did he pass out and try to pull a Jimi Hendrix?  Did he dive out of his pants in order to reach the porcelain appliance in time?

I'll leave things at that to avoid my blog's complete digression into toilet humor.

Yesterday, I headed to the Berlin velodrome (velodrom in German) to take a look at the venue for the famous Berlin Six Day race.  A combination of U-Bahn, S-Bahn (not necessary), and Tram took me to within about two and a half blocks of the site.  From there, signs directed me the rest of the way.

The Velodrom sign let me know I was in the right place.

Much to my delight, there was an event taking place.  It wasn't a track racing event, which would have been super-cool, but it did involve wheeled apparatus.  The event was called something like "Extreme Playground" where nutcases on BMX bikes and skateboards were risking life and limb to please a crowd of German teenagers and an American (that's me). 

Taken out of context, an appropriate caption for this might be: "This will not end well."

The American BMX trick rider, pictured above, did land the jump/flip/twist maneuver as he had planned (or at least well enough to fool us) and went on to win the competition.

The riding, skating, and currywurst eating made for a good afternoon and a happy Karl.

After 8 weeks of traveling, I'm down to my last few days abroad.  It's been a fun run, but part of me is ready to come back to the USA, sleep in my own bed, eat some regularly scheduled meals, ride my road bike, go to the gym, and be at least a little more productive than just writing the occasional bike/travel/racing blog post.

A long Thanksgiving week

It's been a while since the last blog post, but I've been keeping busy.

Last Tuesday  night, I raced in the premier division over at the Manchester Regional Track League.  Once again, racing was really tough.  While I finished each of the events, it was a real effort to get through the 10-mile at the end of the night.

I took Wednesday off (if going to Crossfit counts as a day off) and kicked around Manchester for the day.

On Thursday, I made my way over to Liverpool to visit the Beatles Story at the Albert Docks and checked out the International Slavery Museum (located on the top floor of the maritime museum).

Last time, the line went up the stairs and around the corner, so I had to come back to Liverpool.

The Beatles Story was a highly entertaining collection of Beatles history, memorabilia, and concert posters spanning the Beatles' full range of popular size from the early days of being a local band at the Cavern to the height of Beatlemania.

The International Slavery Museum was an interesting place to visit on Thanksgiving.  It was a sobering reminder that many people have been born into far less favorable situations than I was.

Part of the museum featured a series of quotes from leaders, activists, and others who have been directly involved with the struggle against slavery.  I photographed a few of the quotes, as they were engraved onto the walls:

After learning about the history of slavery, the slave trade, and the on-going struggles with slavery (among other places, slavery still exists in the USA, China, and India).  There certainly is a lot to be thankful for!

After returning to Manchester, I jumped into another crossfit workout Thursday evening; 5 rounds for time of 10 box jumps and 10 pull-ups.

On Saturday, I joined the Crossfit group for a late-lunch at a Brazillian BBQ restaurant, and then we went ice skating and visited a downtown Christmas market.  The ice skating was really fun.  This winter I want to learn and/or try a handful of things including but not limited to: skating fast, winter biathlon, making Glühwein, and building up a pair of bike wheels from scratch.

Over the weekend, I managed to come down with some kind of illness.  In hindsight, I didn't do a good job of eating well and resting enough after all the training and racing this past week, so it is not a huge surprise that my immune system was struggling to keep up.  Still, it's never fun being sick.  After running a fever for a while Sunday afternoon, I slept about 18 hours Sunday night and felt much better Monday morning.

Monday night I headed back to the velodrome for the last night of ACT track league racing.  Normally, having 18 hours of sleep the night before some racing would be great, but having only one of my normal 3-5 meals on Sunday was not so great.  I was able to keep up in all four races, but was in no condition to win anything.  Oh well, it was still a super-fun night!

My appetite returned today, so I'm definitely on the mend, but I decided to sit out racing tonight since my legs were still feeling a little empty after last night.

Tomorrow, I'm off to Germany for more adventures in Berlin.

RYMLMTRF!

No, I did not learn to speak Welsh...  I just came up with an acronym to describe the past week.  RYMLMTRF!: Racing, York, Manchester, London, Manchester, Training, Racing, Fun!

Last week I made it to the track for Monday night ACT Track League and again for Tuesday night Manchester Regional Track League.

On Monday night we raced the normal program of events; 3-km scratch race, miss-n-out, 12-lap Courses Des Primes (point-a-lap for us Yanks), and a 50-lap points race.  Many of the riders in the Monday night field are juniors, and are quite quick in the shorter races.  In the 50-lap points race, it came down to a battle between one of the other older (not-junior) riders and me.  He ended up winning it, with me a close 2nd on the final sprint and 3rd overall.

Tuesday night, the Great Britain national academy riders were back out in force, and the racing was as fast as any I've done.  I was a bit worked over from a Monday WOD at Crossfit Central Manchester, but hung in and finished all four of the races.  In the 10-mile scratch race, I bridged up into an early breakaway and rode half the race with one of the national academy riders before we were swept up by the field just after the halfway point.  I was quite gassed at that point, and ended up losing a lap, but then rejoined the field and finished out the race one lap down with eyes crossed and tongue hanging to the ground.  That's what I came to the UK for, so all was good!

On Wednesday, I caught the train to York, a city about 70 miles north east of Manchester.

The train station exit welcomed me to the city.

As I learned at the Jorvik Viking Centre, York has been a significant settlement since Roman times, about 2000 years ago.  In the meantime, they have been a major center of Viking settlement, trade, and other Viking activities.

On the way from the train station to the hostel where I stayed, I passed through a medieval gateway, shown below:

This medieval gateway was located around the corner from the train station and on the walk to where I stayed in York.

On Thursday, I set out to explore York by foot.  It was cold, drizzly, and generally unpleasant, but I brought my heavy coat and maintained a brisk pace to remain comfortable.  The castle museum was closed, as was the old castle tower (shown below), but I enjoyed walking around them and taking a few pictures.

The castle tower in York sits upon a hill overlooking the Castle Museum.

I continued my walk through the city, checking out the Shambles area and poking my head into the Barley Hall museum before ending up by the Minster.  The Minster was closed to visitors that day due to a university graduation (Darn!  I guess I'll have to come back...) but even the outside was quite impressive.  There was quite a lot of stone restoration work happening on the very intricate stonework of the exterior.

After checking out the Minster, I made my way over to the National Railway Museum before catching a train to Knaresborough to see the castle ruins and railway bridge located there.  Knaresborough is located about 15 miles west of York, and has some very scenic views around the castle area.

The Knaresborough Castle has seen better days and is probably a little drafty for sleeping.

The castle overlooks a creek gorge, where there is a rather impressive 19th century railway bridge shown below.

A picture of this scene is what motivated me to take the train trip out to Knaresborough.

After returning to York, I took another walk through the National Railway Museum, and checked out an exhibit on the Japanese bullet train.  Did you know the train cars on the Japanese bullet train have sleeves covering the gaps between cars to improve the aerodynamics of the train and reduce noise pollution in crowded metropolitan areas?

Thursday evening, I headed back to Manchester for a one-night layover before taking the train south to London.  There was one must-see area on my list for London: Lombard Street.  Last year I read the 1873 book Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market by Walter Bagehot.  Most of the book is about the interactions between the privately held banks and the Bank of England which acts as the banking reserve (federal reserve for us Americans).  I found it a fascinating book, and wanted to visit Lombard Street, which was the banking center of the world in the mid-19th century.

I made it!  As dorky as it sounds, I thought this was really cool.

After checking out the financial district of London (where almost every business is closed on Saturdays), I walked by the Tower of London, the Tower Bridge, and along the river.  Eventually, I made my way to the London Eye, where I took a self portrait doing a handstand (pictured below).  Time delay shots on the camera are fun.

A short time delay on the camera allows for interesting self portraits.  I just have to remember to empty my pockets first...

After visiting the Eye, I made my way over to Piccadilly Circus, and then walked to Trafalgar Square, where there was a big anti-war rally going on.  While the US state department advises against going near rallys, demonstrations, or protests, I figured that an anti-war rally would probably not turn violent (and if it did, I would be sadly disappointed to have missed out on that kind of irony) so went and watched.

As the V-dressed citizens did in V for Vendetta, we walked from Trafalgar square down Whitehall Street towards Parliament.  Unlike V for Vendetta, there were no explosions and no loud music when we arrived at Parliament Square, just some people waving signs, a couple people pounding on drums, and some police watching from a distance (mostly on the opposite side of the street).  All in all, it appeared to me a good, peaceful demonstration, indicating a healthy free society here in the UK.

After checking out the government centers in London, I made my way to the Victoria tube station to meet up with a former SOLO Swim Club and M-A swim team teammate who has been living in London for a few years.  We met up and went for a beer at Filthy McNasty's (a pub that has come under new management and fortunately no longer lives up to its name).

On Sunday, it was back to Manchester, back to the hostel, and then over to the velodrome for the Sunday evening structured training session.  We did another exercise simulating a Madison where 7 riders take to the sprinters lane at a fast pace, with all the remaining riders in the workout circling the track well above the blue line.  After one lap at the front of the bunch, the lead rider of the 7 pulls off and the next relief rider who is passed dives down the track and drops into the slipstream of the bunch, making it seven riders again.  This was a really fun exercise that is a good workout and a good introduction to the awareness necessary for Madison riding, without forcing anyone to do handslings that they're not necessarily comfortable with yet.

Yesterday (Monday) I made my way to the velodrome in the evening for the ACT league racing again.  We did the normal line-up of events, with a Madison at the end.  I was paired up with another Karl.  What are the chances?!?  We rode pretty well and made it a fairly hard race, but didn't quite click on the sprint laps, so I think we ended up in 4th place.  All in all, it was a good night of racing.  Some of those juniors are going really fast now that we're in the closing weeks of the season!

Tonight, it's back to the track for MRTL Premier Division; woohoo!

Birmingham and Another Old Post

This afternoon I returned to Manchester from another side trip.  This time I visited Birmingham, childhood home of Ozzy Osbourne and a city with more canals than Venice.  While Birmingham is not as well-known as some other cities for being a center of British culture, I had a good time there and enjoyed walking the canals and seeing a bit of the Christmas parade and fireworks on Saturday night.

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Birmingham was partially illuminated at night.  The artificial lighting gave the statues multiple shadows, symbolic of the many lost identities wrapped up in the entity of the unknown soldier.

On Saturday afternoon, I caught a football (soccer for us Americans) game at The Church Inn, a charming English-style pub that has been serving beer and tasty food for about 150 years.  Today I saw part of a Remembrance Day service in downtown Birmingham, and then walked around the city for a while before catching the train back to Manchester.

While leaving Birmingham, I saw this set of lights and signs at an intersection and was amused.  Don't turn!!!

Here is another post that I dragged out of my drafts folder.  It describes a week in the middle of September, before I took off for track nationals and the adventures in the UK.  It is rather bike-centric, so may be inappropriate for anyone who finds my enthusiasm for bicycles to be somewhat deranged...

A week at the Olympic Training Center

In the middle of September, I made my way to Colorado Springs for the introduction to bike racing camp at the US Olympic Training Center. I was recruited to pilot a tandem on the road and track, a good fit for a big lug like me. I showed up on Sunday afternoon, and starting Monday we did two rides per day all week. On Tuesday and Wednesday, we rode the tandems on the track, which was a ton of fun. During the first flying lap, turn two gave me a momentary fear that the remains of my stoker, Chester, and I would be scraped off of Union Blvd after flying up, off the track, over the fence, and into the busy street. We kept the bike down however, and finished off the flying lap without incident. The next day, we had our first real opportunity to put some power into the pedals and rode “Emerging Talent” standards in both the 1km and 4km time trials.

On Thursday morning, we learned about climbing and descending on a tandem. Piloting a tandem is way different than a single bike. On my single bike, my body weight is about 90% of the weight of the system, so most of the mass has direct muscle control and nervous system feedback. On the tandem, however, my body weight is only about 40% of the weight of the system, so it takes more of a concentrated effort to guide the bike through an ideal path. While descending Gold Camp Road on Thursday, we had no problem negotiating the turns, but I had to constantly feather the brakes to keep our speed under control. I had the feeling that left to its own devices, the bike would have carried us down that hill much faster than what was safe with the various driveways and intersecting side streets. Better safe than sorry, especially when I'm not the only person on the bike...

Jon (our fearless mechanic), Chester, and I took a breather after one of our descents from Gold Camp Road.

Thursday afternoon, Chester and I had a team-building exercise in self reliance. A short distance into the afternoon recovery ride, we had a puncture and our rear tire went flat. I was carrying tire levers, a spare tube, and a hand pump. I had not taken into account the larger tires on the tandem compared to my road bike. The tube was not made for tires that size, so we ended up riding over to the local bike shop and bought a couple new tubes of the correct size and then borrowed a floor pump to re-inflate the tires. While we were dealing with the bike issue, the rest of the camp group did their recovery ride, so we pedaled easy back to the training center and rejoined the group at the end of the ride.

Friday was a recovery day, in preparation for a road time trial on Saturday. It was nice to have fairly short and low intensity efforts for the 10^th and 11^th rides of the week. On Saturday morning, the group headed out east of town for the road time trial. The course was just under 5-km in length, almost perfectly flat, and featured four right turns. Each rider or tandem pair completed three laps of the course. Chester and I were the last two riders to start. During our warm-up, we did one lap of the course at (or very close to) time trial pace, so we had a good feeling for what to expect (pain, for those not familiar with time trials). With the exception of a mail delivery truck that made a U-turn in front of us on the first lap, the official ride went just like we planned. We took our time to ramp up to full TT speed at the start, and then put our heads down to suffer for the rest of the effort. We finished in 19-minutes 21-seconds, which was the fast time for the day and worked out to an average pace of 1:18.35 per kilometer, good enough for another “Emerging Talent” time standard.

Evidently I am not an expert tandem pilot yet.  I lost Chester!

On Saturday evening, the last night of the camp, a handful of camp participants went to the Finish Line Lounge, across Union Blvd from the Olympic Training Center, for drinks and karaoke. Chester and I both sang karaoke and a good time was had by all. On Sunday morning, everyone left the OTC to begin their travels home. I stuck around for a little while and linked up with Aaron Trent, one of the resident athlete para-cyclists, for some Madison exchange practice at the velodrome. Look for Aaron to be mixing it up in the Madison races next year!

Photographic evidence of my karaoke prowess.  Imagine I sound just like John Geils.

I have to give a big "Thank You!" to the organizers, coaches, volunteers, and mechanic who put in the effort to make the camp run smoothly and did the hard work while us campers pedaled bikes, learned about para-cycle racing, and had a ton of fun.  The photos from the para-cycling camp were taken by Robyn Glang, one of the camp volunteers, and then stolen by me via Facebook.  Thanks Robyn!

On Monday I headed back to Boulder and began preparing for the extended trip away from home (now in progress) that would take me to Los Angeles, CA for elite track nationals, to the San Francisco bay area for a visit with family and friends, and then on to the UK (where I am now) for bike racing, training, meeting new people, and seeing the sights in Europe.

Why are the Brits so fast on the track?

After racing a couple weeks in Manchester, with 10-km scratch races on Tuesday league nights routinely being faster than the scratch races at US Nationals, I was wondering the other night, what makes Great Britain cyclists so fast?

I think the answer may be related to Squidgy Energy. I'm not sure what it is, yet, but it is advertised extensively along the bus journey I take each time I go to visit the Manchester Velodrome. The following images are all examples of advertisements for Squidgy Energy:

On the way to the bus to the velodrome, I see advertisements for Squidgy Energy.

It's not just one; this was the 2nd ad between the hostel and the bus stop.

Near the Piccadilly Gardens area, there was another Squidgy Energy ad.

And in front of the Tesco near the hostel, there was yet another Squidgy Energy ad.

On the way back from the velodrome, I caught two more Squidgy Energy ads.  Taking a picture out of a moving bus, with a pocket-sized camera, does not always turn out well.  Even without much focus, one can tell this is a Squidgy Energy ad from the blurred bits of butter in the top-center.

After departing the bus on the return from the velodrome, I passed by another Squidgy Energy ad.

If this Squidgy Energy is the Brit's secret weapon for riding fast and winning Olympic gold medals and world championship jerseys, I should see about importing some of this Squidgy goodness into the US and see if its properties work to enhance track cycling on the west side of the Atlantic.

Now, to find some Squidgy Energy...

Crossing Paths

Yesterday I took the train from Edinburgh, Scotland, back to the Manchester area after spending a couple days exploring Edinburgh. During my first visit to Scotland, I had a chance to try some haggis (as part of a full breakfast), do an L-sit on top of Arthur's Seat (pictured below), see a statue commemorating Adam Smith (not pictured below), see and hear the 1:00pm cannon shot, browse the Scottish National Museum, take a look at the Crown Jewels of Scotland (and the Stone of Destiny), and make some new friends.

It was too windy for me to do a handstand here. My baseball hat blew off three times.

At the half-way point of this trip, I have had heaps of fun, and met a wide variety of interesting people. As one would expect, I have met lots of people at the track. The velodrome has a curious ability to bring together people of different nationalities, languages, and customs to simultaneously attack each other in points races but have fun and become friends.

I have also met quite a few people outside the walls of the National Cycling Centre. At hostels, on trains, in restaurants, and walking along sidewalks, I have crossed paths with all kinds of interesting people. They have been traveling around, having fun, exploring, and broadening their world view.

Last week in Manchester, I crossed paths for the 2^nd time with a Canadian who has been traveling the UK and Europe. We first met at a hostel in Liverpool, and kept each other company will cooking and eating dinner. When we crossed paths two weeks later in Manchester, it was a bit like seeing an old friend. To be fair, we barely knew each other, but when you are far from home, even a half-way familiar and friendly face can be comforting. Since we met up a 2^nd time without specifically planning to, we made a point of going for beers and spent some more time hanging out before continuing on our separate ways.

Upon arriving in Edinburgh on Wednesday evening, I checked into a hostel there and was rather surprised to walk into my room and see another Canadian who had been in the same dorm room as me in Manchester about two weeks ago. What are the chances? Well, not overwhelmingly high, but also not so low as to be terribly surprised. So, my three days in Edinburgh ended up being spent primarily with a group of Canadians who were all traveling separately but whose paths intersected in Edinburgh.

At this point I am feeling very fortunate to have crossed paths with so many nice, friendly, and interesting people so far. Here's to another four weeks of good paths! Cheers!

While writing this blog post (riding the train from Manchester to Birmingham), I found a couple of old draft blog posts.  They'll be added over the next couple weeks.

Here is one about an interesting conversation I had in Boulder, shortly before embarking on my drive to California for velodrome nationals:

The morning before I left Boulder, I had a brief (but strange) conversation at the traffic light at the intersection of 13^th and Pine. A fellow cyclist on a mountain bike rolled up next to me. The conversation went something like this:

Guy – Nice day for a ride.

Me – Yeah.

Guy – Are you riding far today?

Me – Just heading home from a doctor appointment. You?

Guy – I'm going up Flagstaff.

Me – That's a bit of a climb.

Guy – Yeah. I'm going to do hill sprint repeats.

Me – Ok.

Guy – They are pretty awesome for some people.

Me - …

Guy – Like me.

Germany and Monday racing

This past week I went to Germany, flying from Manchester to Berlin by way of Zurich, as described in my previous post.

In Germany, I saw all kinds of wonderful things.  The next three pictures (each of which is worth considerably more than 1000 words) each demonstrate some of the marvelous things I saw:

A local bike shop had an innertube vending machine outside their front door.  That way, if you have a flat tire outside of normal business hours, you can still buy a new tube and be back up and running before the next morning.

In a grocery store, there was an aisle with bike tires.  Right there in the grocery store!  How civilized...

Possibly the most impressive innovation I encountered was the German 11-pack.  Taking into account exchange rates, the 11-pack of 500-mL bottles is only slightly more expensive than a 6-pack of 12-oz bottles in America, but you get way more beer!

I also encountered the spiced warm red wine (Gluhwein, but with a pair of dots unavailable in my English font selection over the 'u') at a Berlin Christmas market (delicious), schnitzel, white asparagus, partying on the S-Bahn and U-Bahn at 5:15am on a Sunday, and some wonderful guiding around by my new friends.

After returning to the UK, it was back to aspiring-to-be-a-mostly-OK track racer mode.  I headed to the velodrome Sunday night for another SQT session where we did a fun exercise near the end where all but seven riders rode easy around the top of the track.  The other seven riders dropped into the lane and rode at a pretty hard pace.  After a lap pull, the lead rider would pull up and swing way up track, and then the next rider to be passed by the line (now a group of six riders) would drop into the lane and join the back of the fast riding line.  It was like a Madison, but without the hand slings.  It was great for practicing situational awareness on the track and putting in some hard efforts at the same time.

Last night, Monday, I headed over to the velodrome for the ACT Track League.  We did a 12-lap scratch race, Devil Take the Hindmost, 12-lap Courses Des Primes, and then a 50-lap Madison.

After being boxed in at the end of the scratch race last week, I made a point of being near the front, and found myself at the front with 2.75 laps to go.  I eased the pressure off the pedals slightly, but stayed in the lane and patiently waited to unleash a sprint.  The 2 to go sign went by, then 1 to go.  In turns 1 and 2, one of the GB para cyclists came up to my hip, so I opened up my sprint full gas and held him high through the turn and down the back straight.  We were neck-and-neck, elbow to elbow, hip to hip all the way through turns 3 and 4, but then he pulled ahead by just under a bike length on the finishing straight and took the win.  I held on for 2nd, and about 5 other riders came through within two bike lengths of me.

In the Devil Race, I felt like I did a good job of positioning and reacting to changing conditions in the race.  On the first lap, I went to the front and sat on the hip of the lead rider who was in the lane.  We rode tempo for some time as riders were pulled from the back.  After a few laps, someone came over the top, but I immediately accelerated and moved onto their hip as they took the lead position in the lane.  This process repeated twice more as the field was whittled down to about 7 riders.  Then it became time for bursty accelerations, which my 81" gear was perfectly suited to.  I punched a few of these accelerations until there were only 4 riders remaining.  Then, one of the young guys put in a vicious attack, and pulled the other two guys away from me.  I was off the back and was eliminated as the 4th place rider while the other three went on to take 1st through 3rd.  All in all, I was really happy with how the race played out and felt it was good practice for the way I need to ride miss-n-outs back in Colorado and in the Omnium at nationals.

The 12-lap Courses Des Primes was a hammer-fest right from the start.  The field shattered about two laps into the race, and I was left bridging gaps and moving up from group to group.  I reconnected with the leaders with 2.25 laps to go and then followed an attack with just over a lap to go.  The attacker was obviously saving something because he rode away from us all.  I hung on for 2nd on the finish lap, but don't know how that placed me overall in the points.

In the Madison, like two weeks ago, we paired up one rider from the senior group 1 with a rider from senior group 2.  The first eight laps were relatively neutral, and then sprints began with 40-laps to go and went every 10 laps until the finish.  My teammate and I did a good job of maintaining a position in the lead group for the whole race.  We missed an exchange before the 40-lap to go sprint, which may have cost us the race, but after that we came roaring back and were able to put the hurt on a few of the other teams in the intermediate sprints.  With four laps to go, my teammate threw me in to a 4th wheel position which was just about a perfect for the finishing sprint.  The winning team took the final sprint, but we finished 2nd and took 2nd overall in the points, so it was a pretty respectable result.

Tonight: Manchester Regional Track League, racing with the big guns!

Most complicated travel day yet

Today was arguably the most complicated travel day I have yet experienced in my 28 years and 15 days of life on this planet.

A recurring thought; what is it with all-day or all-the-time activities not really being continuous?!?  Here is another example from today's journey:

Here is the breakfast menu you can order from all day, so long as you are there before 11:00am.  Come on Britain!

Before going to bed, I will try to recall all the segments of today's trip:
-Walk from hostel in Manchester's Northern Quarter to Piccadilly train station, ignoring some punk kids who threw a rolled up newspaper at me (they missed).

-Train from Piccadilly to Manchester airport, where I read a newspaper article about a 10-year-old girl who gave birth to a child in Spain and nearly vomited.  Maybe that's why the punk kids threw the newspaper... they saw the article too?

If this vehicle comes to service your airplane, things have gone horribly wrong.

-Swiss Air flight from Manchester to Zurich.  The Swiss know how to do air travel right, with a small sandwich on a fresh-baked baguette and some Swiss-made chocolate.

-Bus from the airplane to the terminal.  Next time, get off the bus a little quicker.

-Short walk from the bus drop-off location to customs where I got to convince the customs agent I was not a viking raider here to sack central Europe (or at least not for more than 90 days).

-Another bus from the gate to the next plane.  Apparently Zurich does not have a lot of jetways...

-Swiss Air flight from Zurich to Berlin.  I slept most of this flight, but still enjoyed the fresh-baked baguette sandwich and chocolates (the couple sitting next to me woke me up when the sandwiches were being passed out, maybe I looked hungry?).

-Walk from the gate to the bus station in the Berlin airport.  Along the way, I picked up some monopoly, I mean Euro, money from a cash machine.  I also bought a smoothie which was outrageously expensive for how tiny it was, but it hit the spot in terms of a quick boost until I reached the hostel.

-Bus 128.  Hey, you've got to respect bus 128.  That's 2 to the 7th power...

-U8.  Sort of like a U-boat, which I learned about at the Maritime Museum in Liverpool, but this one goes under the city of Berlin and is not subject to being blown up by the British Navy.

I arrived at the hostel in the correct number of pieces, found a store to buy airplane-compatible toothpaste, stumbled through ordering dinner, enjoyed a pizza-like thing with feta cheese and spinach on it and 500ml of beer, and now am off to bed.

Liverpool and the Fitness Decathlon

This past week I visited Liverpool, home of the Beatles, registration point of the Titanic, and a main hub in the triangular trade routes between England, west Africa, and the USA up until the abolition of slave trading in the British empire in 1807.

Liverpool is home to two large cathedrals; the Metropolitan Cathedral and the Liverpool Cathedral. 

This is a view looking north-west from the top of the Liverpool Cathedral.

Here is the Metropolitan Cathedral, as seen from the top of the Liverpool Cathedral tower, looking north (roughly along Hope Street).

This is the south side of the Liverpool Cathedral, seen from the St. James Gardens, which are also an old cemetary.  Kind of spooky!

After arriving in Liverpool on Wednesday, I walked around for a while, exploring some of the interesting little streets between the hostel and the waterfront area.

Then on Thursday, I headed over to the Walker Gallery, St. George Hall (a courthouse and concert hall), and the mall area in the Queen's Square town center area.

On Friday, I visited the cathedrals (pictured above) in the morning and then returned to the waterfront to visit the Tate Gallery, Maritime Museum, and the Beatles Story Museum.  The Tate Gallery was very cool, with lots of sculpture and interactive mixed-media exhibits.  One of my favorites was a box constructed of mirrors on the inside and outside, with observation holes cut into each of the faces.  Changing one's viewing position, there were all kinds of fun iterative reflections to enjoy.

After leaving the Tate, I headed to the Maritime museum, and looked at exhibits for the three major passenger ocean liner disasters (most everybody knows the Titanic, do you know the other two?) and the Battle of the Atlantic from World War II.  Some of the early sonar and radar equipment was very interesting to see.  While it might not have been very polished from the perspective of modern electronic warfare systems, there was undoubtedly an advantage to be had by using this technology.

When the Maritime Museum closed, I headed to the Beatles Story.  It was supposed to be open for another two hours, but as I approached the entrance, a couple came walking out and a museum employee locked the doors behind them.  Bummer!

As a consolation, I found an interesting interactive art exhibit in an otherwise empty building on the way back to the hostel.  This exhibit was part of the No Longer Empty program that places art in abandoned or otherwise unoccupied buildings, making them no longer empty.  There were a variety of audio, visual, and mechatronic creations on display; quite a few microcontroller based projects, I think.

On Saturday, I revisited the Maritime Museum to check out the Ernest Shackleton exhibit, titled Endurance.  It chronicled his failed attempt to be the first person to reach the south pole.  I can only imagine how terrifying it must have been for the crew when the ice flow finally crushed the ship and the men had to take refuge in igloos on the ocean-covering ice.  Evidently, the men also became quite familiar with the taste of penguin and seal, as they had to eat those for quite some time.

After departing the Maritime Museum, I headed back to see if I could visit the Beatles Story, but the line at the entrance went up the stairs, along the plaza, and around the corner, so I gave up on seeing the Beatles Story this time.  Maybe I can take a day-trip to Liverpool on a Tuesday or Wednesday when it is not so busy.  Day tripper, yeah!

For lunch, I went back to the hostel and warmed up some leftovers from dinner on Friday, and then headed back to the waterfront to take a ride on the River Mersey ferry boat.  There wasn't time to take any of the stops on the other side of the river, but the ride was worthwhile as the on-board narration gave some interesting explanations of historical buildings and sites that we passed.

After the ferry ride, it was back to the hostel to pick up my pack, and then over to the train station for a ride back to Manchester.  On Saturday evening, I joined some family friends for a dinner-party with a delicious multi-course meal, tasty desserts, a variety of exotic (by Colorado standards) beverages, and a generous helping of interesting conversation.  Thankfully, we set the clocks back an hour or else Sunday morning would have been painful after such a late night.

On Sunday, I met up with the crew from Crossfit Central Manchester and we carpooled to Deeside College in (northern) Wales for an event called the Fitness Decathlon.  Like a standard decathlon, it consisted of 10 events, but unlike the standard decathlon, they were not all track and field events.  Over the course of the day, we completed:
1.5-mile run for time
100-meter sprint
2-minute 20-kg sandbag carry for distance
A short timed "agility run"
An overhead medicine ball throw for distance
A one-rep-max deadlift
Max reps of continuous push-ups (press-ups to some on this side of the Atlantic)
2-minute 60-kg back squats for maximum reps
1.5-minute maximum crossings of an elevated balance beam
A brief series of exercises including running, rowing, box jumps, overhead plate swings (think kettlebell swings, but with a plate), sit-ups, push-ups, and another run.

The 1.5 mile run went very well for me, with an easy pace at the start and a finish time around 8-minutes 41-seconds.  I didn't have spectacular results in any of the other events, but did pull a 140-kg deadlift around the 7th of the 10 events, so I had to be pretty happy with that.

140-kg is 308 pounds, only 7 pounds short of my personal record.  Woohoo!

The Fitness Decathlon wrapped up with Daz from Crossfit Central Manchester taking top honors on the men's side, and Sam (also from CFCM) taking the top spot on the women's side (including the highest score in the max reps of push-ups, outright).  Good work Daz and Sam!  CFCM had a great showing overall, with lots of athletes setting new personal bests and pushing themselves to keep performing well throughout a long (long, long, long!) day of events.

After the competition, it was back to Manchester for dinner and a triumphant return to the hostel.  Tonight, we have another edition of the ACT track league racing, and then tomorrow night will be my 3rd week of Manchester Regional Track League premier league racing.  Then on Wednesday, I am off to Germany to explore strange new worlds and boldly go where I have never gone before.

Save the Wales and the 2nd Week of Racing

Last week I posted from Swansea (in southern Wales), this time from Liverpool.  In between, I made it back to Manchester for some more training and racing.

On Thursday last week, I visited the Maritime Museum in Swansea, and learned about some of the shipping and metallurgical industry developed there during the industrial revolution.  Many Welsh emigrated to the USA and settled in Pennsylvania and Ohio, bringing metal-working experience with them.

On Friday, I went walking from Swansea through the Sketty area (near the university), over the hills to Cockett (where I had lunch), and then over to Gowerton and back.  Upon returning to the bed and breakfast where I was staying, I mapped out the route I had walked and found it was 16 miles.  Not a bad walk, eh?

Some friends from Crossfit Central Manchester were in Swansea on Saturday for a crossfit team competition, so Saturday morning (after the rain died down) I headed to the industrial park near Cockett and watched some crossfit.  After four workouts, one of the teams from CFCM was sitting in 3rd place and qualified for an opportunity to a head-to-head race with the other top-3 teams to determine the final podium positions.  Blood, sweat, and tears ensued.  Ok, maybe no blood, but definitely some sweat and probably a few tears.  CFCM ended up 3rd after two of the four on the team struggled with the rope climbs, but the team ended up finishing respectably and everyone was happy to be done.

 Part of the competition involved teammates carrying one another.

When Sunday morning rolled around, I caught the train back toward Manchester.  On the way to the train station, my carefully-timed and well-thought-out plan to pick up a snack from the grocery store was foiled by a misunderstanding about what it means to be a 24/7 business.

They are open 14 hours each day from Monday through Saturday and then for 6 hours on Sunday.  I'm not sure how they come up with 24 hours from that...

So, after missing breakfast, I boarded the train that would take me to Newport, where I would change trains and head to Manchester.  The train change went as planned, but then the train was steered onto the wrong track.  A part of me wondered if I would be better off sitting in a backward-facing seat if we had a head-on collision with an oncoming train.  After a few forward and back iterations, we eventually wound up on the correct track and were moving in the correct direction.  Upon arriving in Crewe, the PA system announced that this service would be canceled and for everyone to leave the train.

Crewe is a long walk from Manchester, but after consulting the electronic train schedule display board in the station, I saw there was a perfect 20-minute window for me to visit the restroom (good to rest after getting up early to catch a train) and stop for a sandwich before catching the next train.

While eating my sandwich, I noticed that there were no trash cans in the train station.  There were also signs indicating that littering was frowned upon (and some transit police were on hand to frown at me if any littering were to occur), so I just stuffed the sandwich wrapper into my jacket pocket and boarded the train.  On the train, a guy with a big garbage bag came by to collect rubbish, so I did not have to carry the sandwich wrapper all the way back to Manchester.

Back in Man-city, the Man-city Football Club was playing against some team with red jerseys, and the police were out in force to frown at any participants of civil unrest.  They might have had riot gear with which to do more than frown, but I don't think it came to that.  I didn't know that at the time, though, so I was kind of excited as I headed over to the velodrome for the Sunday night training session (the velodrome is about a quarter-mile from the Manchester City Football Club grounds, where the game was being held), thinking that this might be my first chance to see, with my own two eyes, real English soccer hooligans performing real hooliganism right there in my presence.  Sadly, whatever hooliganism may or may not have occurred was finished by the time the training session ended.  Maybe there will be a rain-check opportunity for real hooliganism at another home game later in the season...

On Monday there was another edition of the ACT (Association of Cycle Traders) track league, so I headed over to the velodrome again Monday evening, 81" gear in hand (on bike, really, but you get the idea...), ready to do battle on Madison night.  We had almost the same line-up of events as last week, with a 50-lap Madison in place of the 50-lap points race from the 18-Oct edition.  The first three events were so-so; I was definitely in them and active in making the racing exciting, but didn't finish in the top-3 in anything with the possible exception of the Courses Des Primes (point-a-lap for us Americans) where I finished 2nd on the last lap to pick up a small bonus.

In the Madison, though, it was another story altogether.  It was pretty clear that I was the strongest rider in the race, but also on the smallest gear by a fair margin.  My teammate and I agreed that I would try to be in for as many of the sprints as possible, so if it meant skipping an exchange, so be it.  The plan went about as well as we had hoped, so I think we had the points fairly well wrapped up by the time the lap cards showed us 10 laps to go.  At the end, I was thrown in with three laps to go, and attacked right away.  One guy caught up and passed me on the finishing straight on the last lap, but we had enough points that only taking 2nd at the finish didn't matter.  We won.


On Tuesday night, I wanted to redeem myself for a somewhat unimpressive performance the week before, so I picked up my race wheels and set up the bike with a 92" gear (48x14) in anticipation of another hammer fest.  The Manchester Regional Track League did not disappoint.  A handful of very legit heavy-hitters showed up (attendance was a little lighter than the previous week) and made for some good, tough racing.

In the 10-km scratch race, I launched off the front with 5 laps to go, and built up a reasonable gap, but was caught by the eventual winner with 2 laps to go, and then caught and passed by one other rider on the finishing straight on the last lap.  After being way off the back last week, I was happy with 3rd.

In the 50-lap points race, I exercised patience and did not sprint for the first two point laps.  With 23 laps to go, another rider and I took off and worked well to stay away from the field.  I came around him on the back straight on the point lap, but then Ed Clancy came ripping past both of us as we exited turn 4, so I was left with 2nd place points on that lap.  I think I picked up 2nd place points again with 10 laps to go, and finished around 5th to take 5th place overall.

The Devil race was not overly kind to me; I was the 2nd rider pulled.  However, that left me an extra 90 seconds or so to rest before the 10-mile.  Groups 1 and 2 were combined for the 10-mile, which led to some spirited racing as the population of riders on the track slowly shrank from about 28 to about 10.  Near the middle of the race, I was in a good breakaway group with two of the fastest guys in the field, plus one group 1 rider, and we had taken about 3/4 of a lap on the main group.  Unfortunately, I was caught sleeping when the group 1 rider exploded and started going backwards with the two fast guys in front of him and me behind.  As I went up and over to pass, he swung up to get out of my way which in turn blocked me, and then he saw me and swung back down just as I corrected to drop into the lane and pass underneath.  This fooling around caused a huge gap between the two fast guys and me, so I ended up having to swing up the track and rejoin the group on even laps rather than a lap up.  At the end of the race, I followed an attack with two laps to go, and then put my head down and hammered away as the other rider sat up, so I was able to take the sprint for 3rd (behind the two guys who were up on laps).  All in all, this was a good night of racing that I was really happy with.

Today, I checked out of the hostel in Manchester and hopped onto the train to Liverpool.  Now I'm in Beatles land, checking out the sights and enjoying some British west-coast culture.  Cheers!