2007 Bill Dellinger Invitational

Handicapped Mountain Goats and a Desert Fish

Richard Haight and I (the Handicapped Mountain Goats) finished Race Across Oregon yesterday in 32 hours and 32 minutes. What a blast! Our crew (Matthew Rider and Robert Johnson) was awesome. The weather was great. The course is spectacular. And the competition kept us on our toes.

This morning I ran across an article in the Oregonian and learned that Greg Pressler is competing in the 135 mile Badwater Ultramarathon as I type. I've met Greg a few times at Paula's road races. He has a blog titled Desert Fish. Cool!

Photos of several pages from the premier issue of Marathon Magazine, predecessor to Runner's World, are posted on the Badwater website. They describe in detail Al Arnold's first ever Badwater to Mt. Whitney adventure. I especially like the following paragraph from the article. It captures some of my sentiments about the effect RAAM has had on me.

I'm less anxious and more patient than I was before the run. The ability I developed to last longer with a set of conditions as brutal as I went through enhances my living. I wasn't necessarily an impatient or frustrated person before the run, but now, it's not even part of my vocabulary. I have the ability now to analyze a situation and convert it into a learning experience rather than have it frustrate me.

Speaking of running... Did you hear about Alen Webb? On Saturday he ran 3:46.91 to break the American Record in the mile and post the eighth fastest time in history! I also learned about this historic event in today's Oregonian. Greg, you picked a nice day to be featured in the sports section. Of course, Dyestat has great coverage of the race.

Go Jenn!

Saturday Matthew, Laura and I drove to Woodland to help with the Green Mountain Criterium & Hill Climb. I brought a bike for the hill climb but didn't use it. Instead, I enjoyed watching some exciting crit racing while trying to keep traffic off the course.

Across the street from where I was standing, the VFW was serving biscuts and gravy, eggs, and coffee for $4. Jackie, who works for the Woodland Chamber of Commerce, brought me some. Yum!

All the races were fun to watch. During the womens race, I cheered for someone who was off the front and showing no signs of coming back. Afterward, I found out who she was - the famous Jenn Wangerin. The Oregonian ran a neat article about her last Monday, so I was tickled when I had a chance to hang out with her for a while. Jenn and I are both from Indiana. We chatted about the movie Breaking Away. Turns out she lived on one of the streets where the movie was filmed, and I just watched it a few days before leaving for RAAM. I tried to get Jenn to ride on a two-person team with me at Race Across Oregon next weekend. She seemed to be interested, but a friend of hers who she is riding to Alaska with next Monday shot us the evil eye and informed us that she is NOT doing RAO the weekend before their trip. Oh well...

Go Jenn!

Pictures Speak Volumes

Here are several of my 2007 Race Across America photos.

Oh the Places We'll Go!

http://spectrum-cycles.com/51.htm

I've got two thirds of the new tandem. UPS misrouted the package containing the fork and the center tubes. Supposedly it has been found and is in transit to the correct destination.

Are you between about 5' and 5'10"? Want to go for a ride?

The Single Speed Bikes of RAAM 2007

Dad and I in Hillsboro, OR on 5 June 2007.

Lots of people have asked about the bikes I rode during RAAM. I heard rumors that I had several bikes or that my crew was swapping cogs and chainrings during the race. Neither is true. Here's the scoop.

The tires on all my wheels (yes, I did have several wheels) were 28mm Continental Ultra GatorSkins. Tubes were Continental Race (butyl) tubes. Tires and tubes were both courtesy of Highway Two, the primary US distributor for Continental bicycle tires. The whole race, I only had one rear flat (after some rain in Ohio, I believe) and one front tire that went soft (Upton helping with the flats issues - somewhere in AZ, we had the front tire go soft, upon inspection, I found a little piece of steel belt sharp was worked into the tire, right on the edge of the tire liner, and the flat in OH was after the second rain in the race, which the tired had an 1/8 inch gash which the entire inside of the tire was soaked, so some grit was the ultimate culprit of the second flat. The gash occurred where the tire liner was, protecting the tube for a good while). And if you think 28s are too fat, feel free to ride across the country on something skinnier. It's your ass.

DiNotte Lighting supplied headlights for both bikes, including the incredible L-series flood attached to the Vanilla. Until RAAM, I had been almost exclusively a Schmidt hub generator guy. Although I'm not about to give away my Schmidt wheels, we carried two of them with us on top of the follow van and never used them. The DiNotte lights, batteries, and chargers were perfect for a supported race like RAAM. And the DiNotte lights are better than anything I've ever used for those wet, pitch black descents on overcast winter nights that render a 3W halogen bulb practically useless.


Ira Ryan photographed on 16 June 2007 at 4:36 PM race time (EST) in El Dorado, KS.

My orange bike was set up for comfort and speed on the flats.

The frame and fork were built by Ira Ryan. (Note Ira's name in reflective tape on the down tube in the picture above.) The frame is steel with Henry James lugs, braze-ons for a rear rack, caliper brake mounts, and horizontal dropouts (sans derailleur hanger). The steel fork is threaded.



I built all my wheels. The Ira bike is shown with 32 hole Chris King single speed hubs, Velocity Aerohead rims, Wheelsmith DB14 spokes (dipped in Wheelsmith spoke prep) and brass nipples. A Chris King 15 tooth steel cog is mounted on the rear hub. The tubes sit between Velox rim tape and SpinSkins Race (?) Bike tire liners.

The rest of the drive train consists of a Phil Wood 116mm stainless steel bottom bracket (and cups), 165mm TA Alize deluxe track cranks (note that the fifth arm of the spider is "hidden" behind the crank arm), a 39 tooth TA Alize 3/32" tandem chainring (tandem rings do not have ramps and pins like other 3/32" TA chainrings), and a Wippermann chain.

Beneith my rear, a Thomson Elite seatpost supports a brown Selle An-Atomica Titanico LD saddle.

In the front, a Nitto Technomic stem slips into a Chris King Gripnut headset on one end and holds 44mm Nitto handlebars on the other. Nice (and VERY nicely priced) Soma brake levers activate a pair of Shimano R600 caliper brakes. Relatively inexpensive Profile Airstrike aerobars were temporarily attached to the otherwise classic bike just for RAAM.


Vanilla photographed on 22 June 2007 at 5:17 PM race time (EST) on the podium in Atlantic City, NJ.



(This post is a work in progress.)

Probably Made In China

On our way back home, we stopped at a rest stop by the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. A sign describes the "famed measured mile" and several world land-speed record runs.

Next to the sign is a foot wash that comes in very handy, since salt cakes to the bottom of your shoes when you walk out onto the salt flats.

A high resolution image of the Foot Wash sign reveals a sticker that reads "Probably Made In China".