GamJams.net: Where Mid-Atlantic bike racers roll

Another Weekend of Almost-Racing

So far so good. Not a single early season training race canceled due to snow, ice or police activity. It's even warm enough to race. Polar icecaps? Bah - who needs 'em.

• They were almost-racing on the almost-track down at Sonny Hutchins. Live2Ride Ride2Live is rockin' the trademark photo-essay.
• Keirin Racer was there also and went home with 2 podiums.
• So too were the boys from Kazane Racing, who have got some pics up and promise to post more.
• Kevin Dillard was spotted at Sonny Hutchins. But don't go looking for pics at VeloPhotos.net - K-Dill is all about DemonCats.com these days.
• Jim Wilson also has new pics and a new URL. The latest from Trade Zone are at his galleries on Zenfolio.
• Il Nessie's recount of the A race at Trade Zone is as much about getting to it and from it as through it. Seems about right, since the average transit time : race time ratio is usually at least 2:1.
• (Words, pics, power numbers) x 2. Bryan goes to Trade Zone.
• I don't get it. Is the smell of Motor Oil coming from the break in the B race? Flamenco Chuckwagon continues on his streak of confounding me with titles. This is probably another song title from a band he listens to, but I don't. Like Air Supply or something.
• Even Battoowoo Greekgreek breaks the seal and lines up at Trade Zone.

I'll keep an eye out for more and send them your way. If you have any photos, throw them onto Flickr or Picasa or SmugMug and send me a link, wouldja?

The Beginning of the Beginning

Does the start of the winter training races constitute the beginning of the season? That's debatable, and from both ends. Some would argue that the racing season doesn't start until the races count. Others would contend that the racing season continues year-round on the weekend group rides. My opinion is that the racing season begins with the first race I aim to do well in. In years past, that's been a rolling deadline, usually determined just after the race in question.

• Whatever you consider Trade Zone it started this weekend. Racers are honing both their attacking form and their race reporting form, with updates from Nick Mulder, Bryan (now with Free Power Numbers!), Flamenco Chuckwagon, The Granfalloon, Le Amateur Domestique and Estebe, each providing a view from inside their respective pelotons. Notably absent from the event was the entire GamJams squad, who was home nursing an ailing wife and baby in the morning, before flailing impotently on the trainer in the evening. Sorry I missed it, and hope to see you all out there this weekend or next.
• FJ Hughes has a photo gallery from the A race at Trade Zone, which you know you want to look at.
• In other news, Jay Moglia went to an expert to learn how to become a really bad golfer, which he spins into a parable for cyclists.
• Ride at Hains Point? Say good-bye to The Awakening before tomorrow. Helmet tip to Blacknell.
• I know a handful of local folks make the annual trek out west for the Valley of the Sun Stage Race. Results are in, and the strongest local showing goes to LSV's Clark Vandergrift, with a top 10 GC placing in the Cat 4 event.
• Some local hammers also trekked south to the NC Wolfpack Cycling Classic. I've only been able to find results here in spreadsheets you have to download. Battley Harley's Dave Fuentes won the elite Road Race and Immediate Mortgage/Artemis Elite's Dave Osborne snagged 4th. At the crit on Sunday, Fuentes podiumed again with a 3rd. Neo-pro Ben King of Kelly Benefit Strategies - Medifast finished 5th.

I can't help myself - I'm a fan of Rock Racing. Maybe it was the interview with Michael Ball on VS. during the prologue stage on Sunday, where he came off a little more purposeful and even principled than he has in interviews I've read. Maybe it's that awesome green in the kits and on the bikes. Or Super Mario. BIG fan of the Lion King. Anyway, I found myself rooting for them. There's a blacksheep-esque lure about them I find appealing. Don't be all hatin' on me for it.

More Training Music From/For You

I know a lot of you have complete playlists you use for specific workouts, and if you'd like to share them I'd love to make them part of the GamJams Best Training Music Ever collection.

Here's how:

• Publish your playlist to iTunes as an iMix. iTunes can show you how to do it.
• Send me the URL for the mix, and any notes you have on it - what it's good for, even full workouts in detail, whatever.
• I'll include it in the GamJams Best Training Music Ever collection and attribute it to you.
• This will also mean that any purchases made from these playlists will throw off a commission for USA Cycling Juniors Development.

Publish as many as you want, or only one as big as you want. If the songs are good for cycling, we want to know about them. And the more variety we have, the more money we'll raise for Junior Development programs, which is really what this is all about. (My oldest will hit racing age of 10 in 3 years, and I want USA Cycling's coffers full by then.)

As always, email me with any questions, or leave feedback in the comments.

GamJams Best Training Music Ever Playlist now LIVE

Here they are - the GamJams Best Training Music Ever Playlists, compiled by you. Follow the links below to open iTunes. Remember that any purchases made through the links generate a commission which will go entirely to support USA Cycling Junior Development. (In fact, the commission isn't limited to these playlists - click on the links below and buy anything, and we get the commission.)

The links will open iTunes and take you directly to the link. If you don't have iTunes you can get it here.

GamJams Master Mix
This is all the songs from the playlist - about 5 hours' worth.

Each of the following is a part of the Master Mix, which I've broken down by Beats Per Minute (BPM), so you can work them into specific applications within your training plan. So no need to buy these AND the Master Mix.

GamJams Grinds (50-74 BPM)

Stand up and grind 'em out.

GamJams Climbs (75-84 BPM)

Truth in advertising - for Climbs.

GamJams Endurance (85-99 BPM)
Base building, baby.

GamJams UpTempo (100-119 BPM)
Supple up, Buttercup.

GamJams Frantic (120+ BPM)
Matching the cadence to these is not recommended unless you're a track sprinter or BMX racer.

I'll do another post later on with more mixes (a race-day warmup mix, maybe some specific workouts, etc), but wanted to get these up ASAP. I also owe thanks to more contributors, which I'll do early next week when I have everyone's attention.

Want to know what's in the mix without launching iTunes? Here's its contents:

GamJams Training Mix Update

I promised you the GamJams Best Training Music Ever playlist at the end of last week. It's almost finished. You'll be outside this week anyway so won't need it. But you should have it in a couple of days.

Manny Samaniego of HPC/List went above and beyond, and sent me an iTunes gift certificate worth about half a dozen GamJams water bottles. Thanks, Manny. At about the same time, I got a note from a Junior who reads the site who wanted to contribute, but doesn't have a credit card. So I let him choose  a couple of songs and Manny's gift certificate paid for them.

Any other juniors out there who don't have credit cards and want to contribute, drop me a note with a couple of songs you'd like to see on the list. The offer is also open to anyone else who doesn't have a credit card, but not to anybody who spent all their money on a bike much nicer than mine, and doesn't have enough left to buy a song.

Also, I know a bunch of local hammers were down racing in the Bahamas over the weekend. I can't find results anywhere, but if anyone has some news please share it in the comments. I heard Nick Bax went down  when someone from the Cuban team just had to get past him for 30th in the sprint. Anybody else have some local news from Nassau?

Like which Rite Aid rider this is on the podium, and the homepage of Team Slipstream?

GamJams' Best Training Music Ever

I refrained from using "Ultimate" in the title because things that proclaim they are so usually aren't. But I do mean to put together the best training music collection ever, and then make it all available to you.

Only I don't know what all of you like. So I'd like YOU to tell ME what your favorite training song(s) is(are). I'll put them all in a mix and upload the playlist to iTunes, where you can all sample and download as much of it as you want.

Here's how it goes:

• "Gift" me a song from iTunes you want in the mix. Each one will cost you about $.99. You do this by finding the album on iTunes that the speed-inspiring tune is on, and click "Gift this Music" in the Album information. Then all the "Buy Song" buttons turn to "Gift Song" buttons. All you need is my email address, which is on the other side of this link.
• Anyone who gifts 3 songs or more for the mix will get a free GamJams water bottle. It will have the fancy new logo. It will be recyclable.
• I'll assemble everything into a single playlist, and depending on composition and quantity, build out some smaller playlists for specific functions (pre-race warmups, high intensity intervals, whatever).
• The playlist will be available for purchase from iTunes via GamJams. GamJams is an iTunes affiliate, which means I get a tiny little cut of whatever you spend.
• Only I'm not about to get rich from $.08 per song you buy, so I'll donate all the proceeds to the Junior Development Programs at USA Cycling. Maybe we'll help bring some more really talented kids into the sport.

If you like, think of it as buying a new water bottle for $2.97, half of what you'd spend at the LBS (even with your club discount), and supporting Juniors racing in the process.

I hope also you're impressed with my ingenuity, as I've discovered yet another commerce function for GamJams that allows me to make no money.

So go. Get your Music on.

New Featured Photo - Stick-Man's Glamourous Side of Training

This is actually a photo from Stick-Man's blog from a couple of weeks ago where you can see the original, that I thought captured perfectly the glamour of winter training. I saw it when he posted it, and thought about it again today when I read FireBike's latest Tour de Garage entry. So here it is. Thanks, Amos. And keep at it on the trainer - your legs will thank you in March, even (and especially) if your competition doesn't.

If you have a shot that you'd like to see as a Featured Photo on GamJams.net, send it in. I try to update on Mondays or Tuesdays with a photo from the previous weekend, so push a few my way as soon as you wipe down your bike and/or your tripod. And no, you don't need to be a pro or even need to take professional pictures. Whatever shows it like it was works great here.

So have at it.

Submit your Featured Photo here.

DC-Area vs. The World in the Power Profile Death Match

Jesper Therkildsen publishes an excellent blog about Training for Cyclists called appropriately Cycling Training Tips. The focus of the blog is training with power, and I expect many of you do so already know Jesper's site. If not, have a look.

What does this have to do with racing in the DC Area?

Well, Jesper has just launched a new initiative called The Power Meter Profile Project. His objective is to collect as many power profiles of competitive cyclists as possible in order to create and publish some statistics on power relative to weight, training time, category, and other parameters. I love the idea, and think it would be really interesting to see how I measure up against other racers my age or category across the world.

But it would be even more interesting to see how I stack up against that guy who nipped me at the line in Walkersville. So I asked Jesper if he would segment out all the data from racers in our region, so that we can see how we compare against the people we're actually competing with, and how we as a region compare to the rest of the world.

Jesper agreed. So go fill out the project here (takes 2 minutes if you know your power profile), and when you do be sure to type GAMJAMS in the box that says "Your Message", before you answer the 8 questions Jesper needs for the profiles. That's how Jesper will know to calculate our data separately.

One more thing: this only works if there's A LOT of data. If 20 people do it, we can each see how we stack up against the whole group. But for meaningful comparisons, we need lots more profiles so we can compare ourselves to our category, the next category up, people who train the same number of hours per week, etc. So please send this post to your teammates who train with power and ask insist that they do it also.

Here's a handy link to send an email to your teammates.

The GamJams Great Group Ride Map

I'm no expert on the tons of organized group rides running year-round. But collectively, my guess is that you all are. So I've built this GamJams Great Group Ride Map as a place to drop in the rides your club participates in, your shop promotes, your coffee shop looks forward to, and you're trying to get off the ground. I've got it started with a few of the well-known ones (Rock Creek on weekends, Hains Point at lunch, the Reston rides, the Goon Ride on Tuesdays and Thursdays, etc), but in order for it to be universally useful, it needs a little more richness.

So add your ride using the boxes below the map (for 'Place or Business Name' enter the name of the ride, and for 'Address, City or Country' your best bet is a precise address that you know shows up accurately in Google Maps. You can also just use lattitute and longitude if you're a Garmin geek). If the map gives you attitude, just email me the start location, day, time, and a ride description and I'll throw it in.

By the way, you can also add comments to any of the rides in the map and even rate them from 1 to 5 stars if you're so inclined. So have at it.

[The full screen version of the map might be a little easier to use.]

 

BTW - if you want to add this map to your website - a blog, your club's or shop's site, the corporate intranet, whatever - go ahead. You just need to insert this piece of code onto the page you want the map to live.

Putting the Quick in Quicksilver

I thought this was the coolest thing at the Quicksilver Winter Solstice Series Training race yesterday:

That's Eric Marshall, with a barcode scanner connected to a computer and a printer. He scans the code on the botton of your USA Cycling license and the computer/printer combo auto generates your pre-populated registration form. All you have to do is sign, and hand over an Andrew Jackson. No crowding the reg table (invariably the only horizontal surface nearby) scratching out your name and USCF #, nobody asking "can I use that pen when you're finished," and best of all - no missing your warmup because you're standing in line. Great system, and quick!

Speaking of Quick:

• Eric already has results posted (top 3 places) here.
• Brian Fouche, 3rd place finisher in the A race, has already blogged about the successful break he was in
• Bryan Burns has a photo-rich blog entry of the day, complete with a shot of young Jackson laying down the hurt on his old man

If anyone else has or does race updates, send 'em my way.