This past Friday at Future Party, we unveiled Mobtown Modern’s 2009-2010 season with “A Message from the Future,” a video transmission from outerspace. It’s been an awesome two-year run with the Contemporary Museum and we’re really looking forward to a greatly expanded third season.
Let’s start this report with two facts: 1) I train and race with a power meter; and 2) I do not have a power meter on my disc wheel. So because I’m used to seeing power data all the time and the fact that this was my first 40K TT ever left me a little worried about my ability to do a good ride simply by feel. But as Molly said on the drive out, if I was the main character in a movie I definitely wouldn’t have a power meter. So I pretended I was some 2009 version of Breaking Away. Okay, not really, but it was a decent joke.
Anyway, I ended up doing a good ride even though it felt like there was a headwind throughout the entire course. I passed several people, but more importantly, did not get passed. When it was all said and done and they posted the results I wasn’t even on them! Must have been because I flew by the finish line so fast they couldn’t read my number! Actually, I owe a big “thank you” to Tom for giving me a call to let me know that my name wasn’t up. It was the only time I didn’t stick around to see the results posted. Luckily, we’d only gone about a mile down the road, so I turned around and contested. After a long wait, they found me scribbled on the page of a notebook. I turned in a 56:25 (26.4 avg mph), which tied me for 4th place with Stephen Wahl.
This was possibly the most fun I’ve had in a race ever. Why? I had two teammates—Allan W and Mike R—who had come out to play and did an awesome job. We didn’t make a plan prior to the start but just sort of let things unfold. I was super-excited about this race because the course really suits me; two decent climbs (the second was more fun) and a long drag to the line with a power hill for the final 200m.
Here’s the way it played well into our hands. Mike jumped off the front on the second lap and got up to as much as a 45-second advantage. There were no shortage of motivated guys on the front willing to chase so Allan and I got to sit on for a free ride. The field caught Mike at the top of the first climb the following lap and nothing really happened until Allan jumped off the front. He was gone for a while too. Now Mike and I got to sit in. Somewhere along the line, Mike snapped his rear derailleur and was stuck in his 12, which makes what he did at the end even more sweet. Since Allan was away during the final lap, there were lots of attacks and attempts to bring him back. I marked them all, tacking onto the back of anything that looked promising. Just before the descent to the second (last) climb, a group of 3 with me on the back had escaped though the field caught us at the base of the climb.
I felt good at this point and as I’d done for the entire race, I set a hard tempo up the climb—passing Allan about 1/3 of the way up—and kept up the pace when it leveled off towards the end. The pack regrouped after the descent and we started lining up for the sprint. Allan, who had just done a freakish descent to catch back on after his breakaway asked me if I felt good. Of course I did. So he and Mike (in his 12, even up that hill!) went to the front and lined it out. We were in control with 1K to go, when Mike dropped off and Allan took over. I got bumped around and pushed off Allan’s wheel briefly, but got back on. He delivered me to 300m to the line at which time we got overtaken on the right side. Somebody jumped over there and I couldn’t get across the road to his wheel. I took 3rd in the sprint.
Not much to report from my end other than a trend I’ve discovered in my afternoon crit racing. 1) Legs always feel good. 2) I attack at some point. 3) I cramp in my abdomen so bad that I have to pull out. Has only happened in the two afternoon crits. I should probably eat a real meal for lunch.
You’d think that a Cat 3 would know how to get out of the saddle on a climb without throwing his bike back. You’d also think that a Cat 3 would know how to hold his line and not switch off it quickly after throwing his bike back. And if someone did those two things, taking out your front wheel and crashing you, you’d think that he’d apologize once you finished chasing for 15 minutes to get back onto the main group. Well, you’d hope. Sadly this was not the case last weekend. (Yes, I am talking about you, Yellow Tire Guy.)
Last week I had a couple concerts and a couple reviews: Tim Smith wrote about Mobtown Modern’s season-ending show for the Baltimore Sun and Matthew Guerrieri lived to tell the tale of Sunday’s microtonal marathon in the Boston Globe.
Mobtown Modern is wrapping up its second season at the Contemporary Museum this Wednesday with “Out To Lunch”, a show spotlighting some of music’s madmen (or at least those who’ve been accused of being nuts at one time or another). In honor of this show, we present this crazy mix tape. Click here to get it!
Mobtown Mix Tape, Vol. 6: Loony Tunes
1. “We’re All Mad Here” – Tom Waits
2. “The Substance” – Aesop Rock
3. “Going Crazy” – Jean Grae
4. “Crazy” – Gnarls Barkley
5. “Chronometrophobia” – Andre 3000
6. “Smart Went Crazy” – Atmosphere
7. “Brain Melt” – Madvillain
8. “Mad Scientist (What The Scientist Say)” – Mighty Spoiler
9. “Don’t You Remember” – Wax Tailor
10. “tick, tick…” – MF Doom
11. “Blue Flowers” – Dr. Octagon
12. “Psychology” – Dead Prez
13. “Krazy” – 2Pac
Hybrid Groove Project seeks catchy title for their arrangement of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Tierkreis (Melodies of the Zodiac). The successful title will adhere to the following criteria: 1) make clever usage of the word ‘Zodiac’. For example, Aesop Rock’s track “Zodiaccupuncture”. All title recommendations should be forwarded to the comments section of this post. Please be assured that each submission will receive a thorough and critical screening. The following resource may be useful: http://wordnavigator.com/starts-with/ac/. If chosen, the creator of the successful title will receive an autographed copy of the recording of the complete arrangement. Oooh!
I’m at the end of a 4-week block of training and racing and I need a break. Good thing next week is a rest week (seriously, have you seen the weather report?). I was planning to race Turkey Hill yesterday, but bagged it in favor of napping. Being that I’m feeling a little stale at this point, I went to the Hop with no expectations. However, much to my surprise, about 15 laps into the race, I knew that I had some good legs. Everything was comfortable and I felt smooth. Halfway through there was a good attack by a Bike Doctor and I followed and we ended up with a group of 5, including a Bike Rack, a Coppi, and someone else. It was a good move for my good legs, except about 10 minutes into the break I got a terrible cramp in my abdomen. I know where that came from: I’m in the Army and I have to take the PT test 2x a year, which I never practice for and therefore always end up sore a week after the test. Revenge of the sit-ups today. I tried to tough it out for another lap, hoping the cramp would go away, but when I couldn’t take a good deep breath I was done. I called it. Hated to do it since I was feeling good, but there wasn’t anything I could do. There’ll be other races.
Now that we’ve pretty much got “Leo” from Tierkreis in the bag, it’s time to start moving on to some new melodies. Here’s a “chord progression” made up completely of multiphonics on soprano saxophone that mirror key pitches in the melody that I put together this evening. It sounds decidedly spectral.
There's more where that came from. Music, videos, and albums by Brian all inside.
