The Van Dessel Era Begins

Sucker Brook, Sept. 25.  Photo: Karen Montreuil

Oh yeah, that other thing I do

Book It To The Hooksett Library 5K, Sept. 24.  Photo: Fred Bishop.

I rarely run these days, and when I do it's at the gym for precisely 1 mile.  Which I last did over two months ago.  I rolled out of bed for the Hooksett 5k trail run, and despite inadequate fueling finished 19th of 81.  I realized why I like running and time trials, and it's the music.  It's what gives me that shot of adrenaline to actually focus and dig in.  When you have For Whom The Bell Tolls blasting in your ears, you fucking GO.  Until you implode after going out too fast because you have no idea how to pace yourself because Metallica.

For you, Nana.  I miss you.

Track 3 from Long Cold Winter (or Why Relying on R-Sys Wheels as your Primary Set of Cyclocross Tubulars is Stupid)

A lot of people will say "no shit" without even needing any of this associated evidence.  But I got a set through a sponsor last year, and having seen a few super fast dudes race them, I felt reasonably secure in racing them myself.  In fact, they seemed to be surviving a fair amount of abuse, including a rugged mountain bike race, as well as a spectacular wreck from a handup gone wrong.

So anyway.

As I mentioned, the bike hit the deck pretty hard at Quad Cross when I ate shit running the barriers.  But I finished the race on the bike, and it seemed to be fine.  In fact, I raced a few more laps on it after the crash, which included a few climbs that I had to stand up and mash to get over.

But when I put the bike in the stand on Tuesday night, that rear wheel just weren't right.



And then after some further inspection, this was discovered:

So this is not good of course.

Then I did some reading in the Mavic Tech Manuals.  These are wonderful documents that might only give you a small nugget of repair wisdom, and then reference an older manual to fill in the gaps.  Then you'll find the referenced manual, and it will reference another manual.  As R-Sys has undergone some evolution in past years, there is a bit of this treasure hunting.  Anyway, had to do some reading, because these are not very straightforward wheels to repair.

Somewhere in there, I found a procedure for evaluating the integrity of Tracomp spokes.  Essentially, you grasp them in the middle and try to move them in a 360 circular motion.  This is extremely important to do on a regular basis, because a spoke can be damaged and you may never see it.  Which was the case with another spoke on this wheel.  It was splintered right up the middle, very easy to feel in 360-degree evaluation, but almost impossible to spot.  In fact, when repairing the wheel, we lost track of it several times.

Tracomp spokes are generally sold in Mavic-supplied packs of 10 for $150.  Fortunately, we had the full-on Mavic parts kit, which had spares.  We went through the procedure of lacing them in, but guess what...rim is just wacked.  Junk.  Take your carbon fiber drinking straws, pour some gin and get loaded, because it's time to write a check.

A new R-Sys rim is about $140.  Then you have the labor.  Pull the tire, disassemble the old wheel to salvage the parts, rebuild.  Reglue.  Yuck.  If you don't want to do this yourself, you can pay Mavic an additional $300 and they'll do it (so, $440), plus replace all the spokes.  The tire is still on you of course.  You're not getting out of the fact that you just glued that fucker down with the Stu Thorne method and it's coming right back off.

So we'll figure that one out some other time.  But I'm not repairing that wheel and racing 'cross on it again.  The rim bed isn't all that wide; I know the spec says 20.5mm for my model year, but it's never quite enough.  There always seems to be a little too much base tape poking out.  And hey - I'm going to crash again.  Or someone is going to run into me.  Or something.  This will happen again.  Don't really want to go through it again.  Before, I rode like nothing would hurt these things, but that probably won't be the case anymore.  These will be fine wheels to chase 1:20 on though.  When they were intact, they were rock solid.

So I learned a few lessons:

1. My backup is a pair of clincher training/pit wheels.  Unfortunately, these are not tubular race wheels.  When you've had the good fortune of racing tubulars, and then you're strung out not having them for an indefinite period of time, this SUCKS.  And when you're bigger than the average Cat 3 sprite, clinchers are not going to get it done for you.  This pair I have is an older Open Pro/Ultegra front, with a vintage 105/CXP-21 rear.  Does the job, but it's flexy, tanky, and I'll ultimately flat out with them.  So lesson here: if you're going to have backup wheels, make sure they're wheels you actually want to race on.  So, maybe better stated - if you race on tubular wheels, you should probably have backup tubular wheels.
2. If you see amazing deals on tubular 'cross wheels, at any time, GET THEM.  They don't have to be anything fancy - you don't need a maintain a quiver of rolling sex.  But you will need them at some point.  And if that point happens to be right in the heart of the season, you are up a creek, when inventories are decimated and builders are strung out filling orders.  The boys at Revolution Wheelworks are building me up a pair, but I'll be out 2 weeks when all is said and done.  That's at least 4 races for most people.
3. If 'cross is something you wait all year for, you gotta be prepared.  It's a long season, but it's not.  Don't get sidelined by putting yourself in avoidable situations (like this).
4. If you are PRO, none of this is a big deal.  You'll bust your fancy carbon wheel product and use one of your myriad of other ones.  And ideally make someone else do all the work in fixing the broken one.  And you probably don't have to pay for it.

Quad Cross 2011: 21/42* (35+ 1/2/3)

*Yeah that didn't happen.

Quad Cross was a cluster and I don't care.  For one, they completely abandoned their idea of staging my race in any kind of sensible order, because (to paraphrase the official) "it's too hard to figure out what numbers go where".  And I don't know that anyone really cared about that, least of anyone me.

Compounding the issue, both the 45+ and 55+ fields started immediately after my field.  This created a sea of different races happening at the same time.  I never really knew who was who, but as I sucked so bad yesterday it was completely inconsequential.

@wassilie and I hung off the tail end of the field, we cleared the sand feature, I blew a clip in, and that was it.  I tried to hook back on at various spots throughout the woods, but it was essentially game over.  Dudes were fast and I was seriously regretting a number of decisions.  Like probably riding way too hard last week; as recently as two days before this race.  And eating Roctane for the first time just before the start of this race.

Roctane tastes awful.  It's like if Mr. Clean or Pledge came in energy gel form.  As far as its performance enhancing effect, that was completely lost on me as it turned my spit into solid matter that essentially fused to my face.  That was delightful and unattractive.

So I don't know how many laps in, I get to the set of barriers in front of the Newbury Comics tent.  In spite of riding like complete garbage, I leap off and gazelle over the first one.  Bravo.  Too bad you didn't lift the bike high enough.  I go flying headfirst, and the momentum launches my bike I don't even know where.  The sound it made hitting the ground was so loud, like someone slammed it straight into the earth in anger.

I look up, and a number of good folks from the Newbury Comics team have scrambled to my aid, including @nickmajor79.  I'm staring at the sky, and I'm having serious deja vu because I feel like I just did this - oh because I did.  Someone has my bike and they're unbending shit.  I roll out of the way such as to not get run over, because it occurs to me I'm laying between two barriers where people are running with bikes.  I'm sore but generally fine, and the super helpful bike unbending guy shows me my bike.  The right shifter is mashed in, but having plenty of experience riding it that way in the past, I thank him and hop back on like a fool and ultimately finish the race.

Now, I was quite certain to have finished last, if not reeeally close to there.  I was so completely out of gas, and the wreck cemented the futility of the day.  I was lapped at least once, possibly even twice by the leaders.  It was a little hard to keep track of, considering the other fields in the mix, but still.  Not a good result for sure.  No question about it whatsoever.

I meandered around the posted results area for a while.  I had heard earlier that they had issues getting results up, and after 15 minutes or so, I noticed they still hadn't posted results from the earlier 3 race yet, let alone my race.  And of course, what's the sense of sticking around to find out you finished DFL.  It was clearly going to be a while, so I headed home, figuring I'd find out how bad I sucked soon enough.

And so later that night I see crossresults.  21/42.  Just ahead of @wassilie and ahead of fellow Cat 3 compatriot Tim Young.  In a 1/2/3 field.  I did that.  Yeah right.  For a moment I wondered if I had actually truly done that.  Then I remembered how COMPLETELY F*CKING IMPOSSIBLE that is.  And of course now what the hell can be done - nothing.  The protest period is over & the results were probably signed who knows how long after I left.  Not only that, but while I know the result is wrong, I don't know how it's right.  How in the world would I.  There were other lapped riders, but I have no idea where I finished relative to those guys, or who was in what field to begin with.  It's a total cluster.

So there you have it, it's the greatest cross finish I'll probably ever have that never happened, and quite honestly, a perfectly fitting end to the day.  In spite of the organizational shortcomings though, it was damn good to have the party back in full swing again.  I realized how much I like this stuff, and how the racing is only an ancillary part of it.  It's just damn good to be out.