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Sunday Sarah, Alyssa & I raced the Chicago Triathlon as a relay team. It took us 2 hours, 44 minutes, and 12 seconds for us to swim 1.5k, bike 40k, and run 10k. Out of 174 teams we placed 45th which meant we were in the top 25th percentile. Fantastic!

The day started with getting my bike into the transition area at 5am. Alyssa wasn’t due to enter the water until 9:56am so we had about 4 hours to kill. The course was on the inner two lanes of Lake Shore Drive starting at Randolph and ending at Foster Ave. With a total gain of 509 feet it was an extremely flat course so I stayed in my big ring the whole time. The north wind was a bit tough starting out, but then heading south was spectacular.

My goal for the triathlon was to average 20 mph for the race. I was averaging 21 when on the fourth leg my left calf started cramp up. I probably didn’t have enough salt in me or I was really not used to riding with aero bars. Either way I had to slow way down to stretch out my calf muscle. You can actually see it when you look at my heart rate graph above.

It was very cool seeing Amy & Chris during the event and thanks to BenVC for loaning me his aerobars.

In the end I averaged 19.5 mph over a time of 1:17:55. I’m not sure if I really want do a triathlon on my own or not. On one had it would be fun to train with Dana and an accomplishment in its own right. On the other hand I am a terrible swimmer & I tend to dislike running. We’ll see.

(Thanks BenVC for alerting me to this awesome photo from Pez)

I ended up being completely wrong on who would be wearing a special jersey in Paris. Oh well. On the plus side both Japanese cyclists completed Le Tour! Congrats!

I went to San Diego recently. I’ll be posting pictures soon, but in the meantime check out my flickr for a preview.

Japanese rider Fumiyuki Beppu (Skil-Shimano) was able to hang with the break today and get himself a top ten finish. The highest an Asian has ever placed in the Tour. No, Kazakhstani Alexandr Vinokourov does not count. My mind is exploding.

I meant to make my predictions for this year’s Tour and here I am a little bit late.
Overall/Yellow – Lance Armstrong
Points/Green – Tom “Tommeke” Boonen
Climbers/Polka Dot – Andy Schleck
Young/White – Roman Kreuziger

edit: Woops, I forgot that Andy cannot win both the Polka Dots and the White jersey.

Pictured above is my S&S Travel Bike in its newest incarnation. The Thylacine Tephra road frame always had S&S couplers, but I recently had Matt Kaminecki replace the vertical dropouts with horizontal ones. He also added removable cantilever brake studs. This gives me a mind boggling number of possible variations:
- Fully geared (2 x 10)
- Singlespeed
- Fixed gear
- Road
- Touring
- Cyclocross

And of course with each of these options I can pack it up in a case & check it as regular luggage. Next step is to build a set of matching wheels, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.

Right now I have it setup as a fixed gear bike perfect for cruising around Boston while I watch Dana run the marathon. Special thanks to Team Pegasus members Cale, Katy, & Andy for all their help.

(Stripping off the old powdercoat)

(The Thylacine in its original form)

I was almost three for three on yesterday’s Paris Roubaix.

     - Long Li did not win the race and sadly did not finish the race.  The Chinese rider was unable to make the cut at the 100km mark in the 259 km long race. Then again almost half of the racers who entered were unable to finish the punishing race.
 

      -  Tom Boonen won! 

 
(2005 photo by flickr user hamburgr)

     - I, however, was incorrect about it being a boring race.  I had invited some friends over to my apartment to watch and I was on my feet quite a few times yelling at my TV.  It was a thrilling end with a select group getting whittled down by crashes & attacks until there was just Boonen crossing the line in the Roubaix velodrome with plenty of time to hold up 3 fingers for his 3 wins.  If you haven’t seen the race you can check out the finish on youtube.

Will Sunday’s Paris-Roubaix be the first classics race won by a Chinese rider?  

Almost certainly no.  Yet, there is a chance with the Skil-Shimano team sporting 26 year old Chinese rider Long Jin in the 107th running of the historic race.  Often times I get asked why the Chinese never seem to compete in the Tour de France considering China is a nation of bikers.  My suspicion is that it is a combination of several factors with the biggest being that for a long time bicycle racing just wasn’t a part of the culture and that because racing is extremely expensive.  Now Mao had his own theory for why, but that’s best explained in person.
 

In any case we have begun to see major headway into the sport.  Skil-Shimano is a continental team that has been fielding riders from Asian nations for a couple years now and the Chinese Marco Polo team has been quite successful in smaller races especially in Asia.  In fact teams like the now defunct Discovery Channel had Asian riders on their B-squads.  Especially exciting are the excellent results from China’s national track team.  Most recently Shuang Guo won the women’s keiren by half a wheel at Worlds and if you are a careful reader of this site you’ll remember she also did quite well at the Olympics.

Notes:
- Skil-Shimano’s also got a Japanese guy on the roster for Roubaix.  I could talk about him or post his picture, but I’ll let a Japanese-American cycling fan do it instead. 

- The Japanese have been very good at track for a very long time. In my mind that’s further proof that having a vibrant culture of bike racing is the key to getting some Chinese riders on the podium.

- Tom Boonen will win Sunday’s race.  There isn’t any real question.  In fact I wouldn’t even bother watching, it’ll be boring.

SPOILERS for yesterday’s Tour of Flanders below.

The 93rd edition of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen ran on Sunday and in a general sense not much has changed. Stijn Devolder of Quick Step came across the line first (this time with a comfortable minute plus lead). In fact except for Alessandro Ballan’s win a Belgian from Quick Step has won the Tour of Flanders since 2005. Of course that doesn’t mean it wasn’t full of excitement. Check out the clip above (skip to minute 3) for an epic crash.