Back from the Firestone Walker Norba Nat #2. A painful affair made more painful by the guy sucking my rear wheel on the second lap that refused to pull through. Then he out sprints me for second place. No honor among thieves. Of course this coming from the guy that lost the sprint and was stupid enough to do the pulling. The silver lining...series lead going into Fontucky this weekend. Woohoo.

Now, onto the good stuff. So I clean myself up and walk my tired bones over to the results board for a quick visual of the prelim results. Nothing posted...hard to believe. This race, as is the case with most Norba's, was being handled by TeamBigBear. You always get the feeling that somehow, there is a monkey quickly squibbling down numbers somewhere to be transposed onto a computer printout. This ultimately is posted to the screams, rants, threats of violence, etc. My race went off late...hard to believe...at about 11:40am. We finished around 1:10pm or so. The sports and beginners went off at 8am. At 2pm when I did my first post race result evaluation, they were just finalizing the sports/beginner categories. That's some four and a half hours post race finish. Yikes! So the dilemma unfolds. Do I stick around to make sure I got scored? Or do I jump in the car and start the five plus hour drive home. I find a couple of sport guys standing around and ask them what's up. They go on about how results were promised at 1pm with the podiums to take place at 1:15pm. It was now 2:15pm and there was no word or action in sight. Unless you include the head dude from BigBear interviewing the Kenda girls for the umpteenth time. The guys look at me and say that the only reason they are hanging now is that they've waited this long. If they could do it again, they would have bolted at 9:30am when they had the chance. It's then that they asked me where I was from and I told them the Bay Area. "LEAVE," they implored. "For the love of (insert the deity of your choice here) leave while you are still sane." I knew this would make the wife happy who was in tow with the chitlands for the weekend. "Hell," I thought. "Maybe I could work this to my advantage. Score some good guy points." So I throw caution to the wind and decide to cut bait. I headed back to the car to find my wife contributing to the AlGore situation and running the car for the A/C qualities. She rolled down the window and asked rather innocently what was up. "Well," I started. "We can wait for the results and podium stuff. But the sports who finished racing like five hours ago are still lurking about and there is no end in sight. Or, we can leave."

"What's the catch," she leveled? "Well, since I'm being so cool and forgoing my spot on the podium, which is the highest step I've ever been on at a race of this caliber, I thought maybe you could help a brother out on the way home if the kiddiewinks fall asleep. You know, a little action ala that 70's style porn that was soooo popular back in the day." It really seemed like a good idea and one that I thought she may go for given the fact that she really wanted to leave. In the process, I thought we might be able to shake things up a little.

Her eyes narrowed and her brows got all pointy like. She looked over her shoulder at the kids to make sure they were fully engaged in the video they were watching. I felt a chill in the air. She turned back to me and in a lowered down, but very intentional tone she said, "you are out of your mind if you think I won't put this car in drive and leave you here. You dragged us down here by telling us we could go to the beach or perhaps the Santa Barbara Zoo. In fact you told us we were going to Santa Barbara. Instead, we end up in some fake Danish Village that is more like being stuck in the "It's a Small World" ride at Disney Land. There's no beach within 50 miles and I end up with the kids for two days in a dusty, wind swept parking lot in 95 degree heat while you either pre-ride or race your bicycle. We will wait for you to get your result, but you get nothing." With the tea leaves so clearly showing me the correct path to take, I quietly loaded my bike into the back of the car, got in, and left. Anyway, hope you are well. I have no more bright ideas.

Johnny GoFast

Way before I was a bike racer, I was a Boy Scout. An Eagle Scout to be exact. The motto of every Boy Scout around the world is Be Prepared. So I was about 10 minutes into my ride yesterday when I realized that I did not have my Allen wrench with me. Normally not a big deal and I'm not one to travel with a litany of tools anyway, but I was on the single speed. That rear wheel does not feature a quick release. I noodled through the odds of getting a flat and they came up low. I also noodled through the odds of getting a flat considering the knowledge that I did not have the proper tool to fix said flat and the odds quickly shot up. I decided that I should turn around and go back and get my tool. Again, factoring the odds if I turned around, the odds of getting a flat went down to zero. "Well hell," I thought. "If the odds are zero, why turn around?" And so I pressed on with no net. I've been riding the single speed on those days were I haven't really felt like riding. The legs are still a bit tuckered from the efforts of this past weekend, so I brought the one speed. It's so great to ride that thing. I hit the Open Space to ride some of my off the grid trails (shhhhh). About half way through as I was transitioning from Fenceline to Deer Trail it happened. I slammed into a cinder block near a work site and I got the dreaded pinch flat. On the rear wheel of course. So I dug through my seat bag hoping that I might have a stray Allen, but no luck. I did find, however, a patch kit. I was able to get the tube out and find the holes and get them patched. Thinking I had defied the (G)odds, I pressed on. I thought about heading home at that moment not sure if the patches would hold, and if they didn't, I'd be really screwed. No more patches, no Allen, done for. But the trails beckoned and I answered. I was just about off the dirt when the rear went flat again. Damn. I hoofed it out trying to formulate a plan. I could find somebody with a cell and call my brother at the rock pile to come and pick me up (too embarrassing). I could stop by my underpaid coach's house and borrow the tool (he'd no doubt see that I was on my single speed and not doing his prescribed workout and ask me what the hell I was thinking--better off walking back to work). It's then that I saw a contractor. Luckily he had a 5mm and Johnny was back in action. I made it back to work with my lesson learned. Hopefully.

Johnny GoFast

The routine is usually dinner done by 6:30 and then it's onto bath time. Lately the boy has been retreating to the shower while the girl dawdles in the bath. If everything goes according to plan, the boy will get out just before the girl. By the time I get the boy dry, the girl is pulling the drain plug. While the boy gets himself pajama-ed, I dry the girl. I then get her into her princess stuff and then we all climb into the boys bed and read books of their choosing. On occasion, when the wifeage is out, we rough house a little. Sometimes we play a game called Thrash Daddy. I get on the family room floor and anything goes. The only rule is that there is no stomping or hitting Daddy and if somebody starts crying, the game is over. I've seen my kids land on their head and I've seen them pull themselves together so that the game can go on. They love it so much that they've really toughed through some gruesome crashes. Suppose I'm getting them ready for life I rationalize. Anyway, last night was one of those nights that saw my wife out of sight, and we went after it. A game that we play rarely but is definitely a fan favorite for all involved is called Baba Throw. They each have a special blanket that are called Baba's. It's a name that my boy came up with for his special blanket at a very young age and we kept it. When the girl arrived, she adopted the word and to this day, I'm not certain she doesn't know that the name is not a real word (a lot of negatives there but I'm sure you get the point). So anyway, the game basically involves them standing on the boy's bed while I whip their wadded up baba's at them as hard as I can throw them. They try and duck and hide and defend themselves with pillows and stuffed animals and I wind up like Juan Marichal and let fly. They get smacked something awful. The harder--the louder they laugh. The boy mainly stays on the bed and has gotten pretty good at diving for cover. Of course I know his moves and can still nail him. The girl will get off the bed so I have to get her in "space". A lot of times she'll streak across the room in full hysterical shriek desperately trying to get to the chair for cover. She never makes it. They always throw me back their baba's for the next round and beg to keep the game going. We only play when Mama is out of the house as I'm sure she'd be horrified. But there isn't a smile missing on one of our faces, and so we play. It was a great session last night and one that will get repeated tonight as the wifeage is again going out. One of the great joys of being a parent is feeling young again. Hope you are well and you never let go of that inner child, yours or theirs.

Johnny GoFast

Has anybody seen my legs? I had them on Friday, but when I woke up today they seem to be missing. They are flesh colored and resemble gigantic pistons from a really powerful truck. They answer to the names: "Shock" and "Awe". I can't be certain when I lost them but it might have been sometime around 10:30am Sunday. I definitely had them on Saturday during the Wente Road Race. I used them to pick up a third in the 35+ 4/5 race. My intention was to help one of my teammates during the race as he is a much better climber than I am, typically. Going into the finishing climb, there were about 15 of us still together. I had worked earlier to bring back one break and I had sat on another guy that was trying to get away. As we made the right hander on to the steep finishing slope, the group was moving fairly slowly. So I attacked thinking that I would weed out those that were in the way and call out those that could climb better than the rest. I assumed that my guy would follow the wheels. After about a minute I looked back and I had a big lead. I remember looking down at my legs in astonishment and thinking, "look at you guys go." Finally two guys started to counter but unfortunately my guy was not with them. I looked up the road as it started to flatten out and tried to convince myself that the engine was not blown. I dug deep, but that bedrock is hard to chip through. I was passed not once, but twice before I could get to the line.

So yesterday I'm warming up for the Napa Dirt Classic and everything seems to be checking out okay. The legs actually feel pretty good. The start seemed to reveal something different, however. Mark Howland and James Coates went off the line like they'd been raped by a large animal. My head felt like it was going to explode due to the effort. I looked down and the legs seem to suggest that they were giving me everything but the heart rate told a different story. Normally I race with a pretty high HR, but yesterday I was barely cracking the 170's. Not good. With Howland and Coates gently rolling away, I tried my best to stay hooked to the 3rd place guy (Den Satake). I could see him occasionally, but he had a full can of whip ass out as well. I was riding okay on some of the single track, but not great. I tried to ignore the pain and go as hard as I could, but when it's off, it's off I suppose. I brought the thing in for a fourth place finish in the Expert 40-49 class. I saw Coates and Satake at the start of the climb out of the Pope Valley, but eventually they put ~five minutes into me over the last 30 minutes. That's a bitch slap. Anyway, if anyone has a line on where my legs might be, shoot me a line. Oh, and I've checked with the milk companies already and they won't put a photo of them on a carton so don't suggest that. All other suggestions welcome. Hope you are well.

Johnny GoFast

Of the many things I love about my job, standing in the booth is a little down the list. That's my brother there and we were at the Burbank Airport Marriott for an industry convention on Tuesday. Painless trip really. Flew down Monday night which took only 50 minutes. I hate flying. Not that I think the plane is going to drop out of the sky or anything its just that I'm a little more claustrophobic than most. Not that I've ever felt compelled to get up, go outside and run up and down the sidewalk screaming at the top of my lungs, it's just that the option is always in play. This can't be done on an airplane. Well at least not more than once, and sometimes that gets me freakin'. Akin to Griffs bee sting anxiety...anxiety is anxiety. Anyway, standing in the booth can get tiring on the legs. Every once in a while someone will stop by that we do business with and they will have something nice to say about our service or I'll get to meet the "voice" on the other end of the line. Which is cool. Tuesday we made some new contacts and discussed some opportunities that could come our way. Enough about that.

Yesterday I turned 41. Took the day off and rode my bike around for a while. The legs feel like crap after the Sea Otter non-sense so I kept it low and steady. Saw Carl the Ranger up on the mountain and we commiserated about what could have been. There will be a next time, so those of you wearing different colors...beware. We will drop the old Naughty(me) -n- Nice(Carl) on ya. Later I hooked up with my Mom, Dad, and two brothers and we went to the A's game. I got carded at the beer stand which was cool. She did a double take on my ID when I told her it was my birthday. She then said that I didn't look a day over 28. Which begged the question why I got carded in the first place. With that she belted into the Happy Birthday song long play version. I was that guy standing between the drunks and their next bucket of $10 beer. Not a real great place to be, but I enjoyed every moment as the lady had pipes. And I would have gotten away with all of it except for the fact that I was caught neck deep in beer by none other the Carl the Ranger's brother and fellow Pegasaurus team mate Alan. Damn. Bike racers don't like baseball. That would take some sort of hand eye coordination. Finished up the day with a fantastic dinner prepared by the wife. My kids gave me hugs, kisses and homemade birthday cards. It doesn't get any better than that. Hope you are well.

Johnny AgeFast

At the end of the day, or weekend as it were, the Sea Otter is a lot of things but easy it is not. The logistics are always a hassle not knowing where they're going to park you, weather scenarios, results, finding the starting lines, not getting run over by some fat tired moron, etc. But Johnny, don't you ride a fat tired contraption? Whoops, yes I guess your right. Anyway, the weekend came off great. The two photo's above are from the pre-ride on Saturday. Griff and I managed to avoid the rain. Later it came down in buckets and that only firmed up the course for the Sunday marathon. I ended up coming in 4th in the expert 40-44 class which is by far and away my best result ever on a bicycle. I've already checked the results like 23 times to be sure it really shows me in 4th place. I had a good race and I went pretty hard for the just short of three hour slog. The wind was pretty strong at times and that really battered the will. Luckily I brought my best attitude as I needed all my fortitude on the final climb out to hold off (or perhaps pass) the 5th, 6th and 7th placed riders by less than 50 seconds. Griff was behind me somewhere having missed the start of our race. You always see that guy scrambling through the group trying to get out on course after his wave has left, but you never know that guy. He had a good race as well, but when you have no idea where you are at and what your relative position is, it's hard to keep the motivation engine running. I'm headed to Burbank tonight for some work thing tomorrow so I know I'm not dreaming. Good results certainly makes the training easier and makes me question what else I can do to get faster. Good times.

Johnny GoFast

So what do you do when the guy you're working for at The Otter road race flats going into the last lap? You do what the VoMonster would do and attack. Today I went out with the sole intention of getting Carl the Ranger (probably the nicest Pegasaurus of them all--no disrespect to the rest of you blue clad winged horsies--but am I wrong?) onto the finishing climb with the bunch together. For the first couple of laps I just kind of tailgunned for a while waiting for the attrition to do it's thing. Eventually I moved forward when I sensed that something might get cooking. Sure enough, some people started dipping their toe in the water and occasionally we'd have somebody rolling off the front. Whenever it happened, I'd bridge up with Carl or slowly drag the peloton back. After the fifth or sixth time, I was starting to get the stink eye and even had a couple of snidely whiplash comments leveled my way, but what are you going to do? For those of you unawares, Carl is a great climber. He works on Mt. Diablo and knows everyone that climbs up that thing on a regular basis. He always has something positive to say to everyone he comes across. He's the kind of guy that you can really bury it for and I knew he could finish the thing off if I could get him there. So into the last lap we go and about half way up a pretty decent climb...no Carl. Unusual for he would always be in the top five each time up. So I dropped back a few riders...no Carl. A few more riders and still no Carl. I finally got to the end of the line and some Touchstone guy was dangling off the back. "Have you seen another Pegasus rider back there," I ask. He looks at me through vacant eyes and gently shakes his head. I do a full blown head turn and he's not there. Gone. Poof. Race plan down the drain. I crest the hill and I wonder what the heck I should do. I could chill and wait for the finishing climb and ply my wares. I'm not climbing horribly and maybe I can beat half these guys, I think. Then, similar to a scene straight out of Animal House, Mike Vomund shows up on my shoulder. "You're thinking of sitting on aren't 'cha," he says to me. "Yeah, kinda," I mutter through labored breath. "Where'd that get you two years ago," he asks already knowing the answer. I look straight ahead alarmed that this conversation is even happening. "I'd attack," he says. And so I go. I mean what the hell. I tried last year and got a couple of guys to come out and it almost worked. So I shoot up the left and as I near the front I see this guy Bret who rides the HOP ride on Saturdays and is really strong. I give him a shout out as I rip by. Into my effort I give a peek back and nothing happening. It's now or never so I put it in time trial mode and throw everything at it. The VoMonster still perched on my shoulder now giggling with delight and challenging me to go faster. Why not? I made it the most of the way around the lap finally getting caught as we crested the last hill. On the descent to the finishing climb, I look over and the VoMonster is yawning. And I attack again. I was through the hard right at the bottom in first but right behind me was the field. Game over. I sat on the back of the pack up the start of the climb and moved around popped riders, but slowly the faster climbers moved away. Inevitable, I guess. I was able to bring it home in 15th. All in all, had a real good time and with a little better luck, maybe our plan could have delivered Carl to the victory. That's racing. Tomorrow I'm pre-riding the MTB course with the Griffociraptor so I'll check in with some pics of the course. Hope you are well.

Johnny GoFast

Goodbye God...I'm going to the Sea Otter.

www.seaotterclassic.com

I'll try and post my trials and tribulations from the pandemonium.


Johnny GoFast

Did the House of Pain group ride on Saturday. The legs were toast after yet another hard week of training. With the HR in a high zone three territory, the perceived effort was race rate. I was dying out there to be sure. I've taken a little time off this week as a result and the legs are actually starting to feel human again.

So I get home and off the bike and the wife gives me the old, "chop-chop." I say, "chop-chop what?" She says, "the garden chop-chop. We had a deal. It's Easter weekend and the garden is going in today." Aye carumba! Loaded up the kiddiewinks in the car and down to the nursery for the plants then over to Home Depot for the chicken and cow poop. Back to the house and into the garden. Last year I spent about 40 man (read: me hours) hours in the backyard laying in the planter boxes. All that work led to an extremely easy go of it this year. The boy helped me turn the dirt in two of the three boxes and we tilled in the manure. After which, he helped Mama get one box planted with corn, beans and peppers while I planted the other with tomatoes, cucumbers and squash. The kids' box is still throwing off herbs and strawberries. We also planted some pumpkins. Prior to the tilling and planting, we harvested our winter crop of lettuce, beets, and carrots. The carrots were by far the best. This summer, hit me up, and I'll supply you with Mother Natures best. Hope you are well.

Johnny GrowFast

So that's my boy. It was the annual baseball game between the Orange Otters Blue team versus the Orange Otters Red team. My boy was the lead off hitter so he got to sit in the first chair on the bench. He told his Mama this morning that he wasn't sure what he was supposed to do today. He can be on the shy side, so I wasn't sure if he'd go through with his at bat when it came time. He loves to hit and we work on it a lot in the front yard. We don't use the tee so much as he prefers that I pitch to him. Like any proud father, I think he swings like a right handed Ted Williams. As you can see in the photo, it's a dog-gone mirror image. The boy cracked one out to the fence where it rattled around for a little while before some kiddiewinks could catch up to it.
By then, Jackson had crossed the plate and was already back in his seat. I'm pretty sure he knew that this wasn't a real game, but I was proud of him for getting up there and driving the ball into the alley.

Afterwards, we loaded him into a buddies car so he could go play for the afternoon at their house and we drove the MaileMo home. She was tired and she went to rest in the other room. Mama apparently had a great time at the game because she had a little something extra for her man...if you know what I mean. Sky rockets in flight...

Anyway, hope you are well.

Johnny GoFast

Sure, Griff may have cat 3 huge legs but has he ever ripped a derailleur to shreds? Let me answer that...no. Probably has more to do with the fact that he's smooth like butter. My thrashing meathead style (EMC is collectively nodding their heads) probably had more to do with the dismantling of my derailleur than anything else, so I shouldn't brag.


So I've decided to bag the whole geared thing. Took my latest single speed out for it's maiden voyage today in the Walnut Creek Open Space. Recall that the Titanium (strongest metal known to man--and virtually unbreakable unless your super human strong) frame ended up cracked so I had the parts switched over to this black beauty. Thinking that it was a Tuesday and all and in the middle of the day, I planned to ride a lot of the single track that is off limits to us dope smokin', goatee wearin', bohemian, one geared hipaphonics. I guess I didn't factor in that the economy is roaring and the weather is beautiful, so I found out that there were a lot more people out and about. You know what they say, no derailleur...no brain. Anyway, I did manage to sneak in a Fenceline and Deer Trail. If you know the Open Space and you've never heard of these trails, it's because they don't exist on any map. They're secret. Now normally I wouldn't do anything wrong or illegal, but I signed the tax form last night and I kind of feel like the money I just handed the Gov. bought me those trails. I know that's not the way it works and it's just a half baked way of justifying wrongness, but like I said...no derailleur, man. If you ever want to go out there, let me know, the trails are pretty good in a Walnut Creek kind of way.

I'll leave you with a little of my video prowess.

Johnny GoFast

Back from Arizona where the racing was fun. Things I broke: One disc brake rotor thing (not sure if that is the right name for the metal piece the brake pads grab--new to the whole disc brake thing), one front derailleur, one right seal on my Fox fork, and one pair of rear brake pads. It was that kind of weekend. Luckily, there were some volunteer mechanics there that were able to take my fork off and then Fox, who was at the race, serviced it. The mechanics then put my bike back together. A shop in town replaced the rotor and brake pad. I serviced the derailleur in a middle of a race type way. Going into the second lap of yesterday's 30 mile cross country race and just having taken over second place and riding away from the rider, I somehow mangled my front derailleur to the point that the drive train would not work. I had to get off the bike and wap the derailleur a few times with a rock to bend it back into functionality. To no avail (hard to believe) so in a steroid like rage I tore the now useless metal from my bike, put the chain in the middle ring and continued on for the next 20 miles praying the chain wouldn't fall off. For the most part my prayers were answered, but I did have to dismount and reattach the chain about five times. Frustrated and losing momentum every time, I hung in there telling myself that breakage and wreckage happens in mountain bike racing and it's how you deal with it that determines your result. In the end, I came home fifth which is still my best finish of a race of this caliber. I've never been able to go fast enough to entertain the idea of being in the top five, so I'm kind of stoked given the fact that with a malfunctioning weapon, I was still able to do well. I was going to do the Madera Stage Race on the 28th and 29th, but now I think I've got unfinished business to attend to at another Norba National near Santa Barbara on the 29th. I finished 4th on GC for the stage race. 3rd in the TT, 5th in something called Super D (but it really was more of a TT type race) and then 5th in the cross country. All in all a good weekend. Griff was sick the whole weekend so he didn't ride all that well. It's always been about beating Griff, but it only feels good when I beat him at his best. Sea Otter looms large. He didn't do the Super D race as he got stung by a bee. He is somewhat allergic so he kind of freaked. I had to race him back to town while I watched him swell before my eyes. He knows I think of him as a hypochondriac--because he is--but he was anxious about not being able to breathe, and that kind of anxiety is no laughing matter. Anyway, hope you are well and see you out there soon.

Johnny GoFast