The Paul Mach Blog

I tell it how it is

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 04:40:21 GMT

They say history is written by the winner. Since neither Jesse nor Phil have blogs, I will dictate what is written about the 4 lap, 100 mile, Winters Road Race 2010.

An 8 person break separated early from a well motivated, far from lazy, out for blood, peloton. The break, containing one from each team, except two from Cal Giant, gained a maximum of 10 minutes before it reached the finish line.

The break splintered over the last 40 miles and only 3 came to the line together. The finishing order was Jesse, Phil, Paul.

From a more personal perspective, I had fun riding the breakaway. I followed my prerace plan of riding the third lap hard with the intention of suffering a bit after that. The only problem was the third lap hard riding was mediocre and the 4th lap suffering was extreme.

I have one question to ask. To whom was the suggested $3 parking donation? A wealthy land owner, your mom? I have nothing against donating, but just straight up asking for money is for homeless people and your friends.

Ain't no mountain high enough

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 06:06:27 GMT

The last few days of the Tour of Utah, which claims to be "American's Toughest Stage Tour (direct quote)," were toeing the line of insanity.

The crit up at Park City on Saturday was the hardest race I've ever done, hands down. It was basically Nevada City backwards, but at 7000 feet.

I hit the wall multiple times while desperately trying to inhale oxygen that just wasn't there. At one point I cracked so deep I was questioning my sanity. On the decent I wondered why I wasn't sitting behind a desk making more money and living life much further away from death.

I ended up rolling in with the second group over a minute down, happy it was over. Judging by the looks at the finish line, I wasn't the only one.

Sunday was the queen stage from Park City to Snowbird. I'd done it twice before so I knew what to expect, pain and suffering

On the roll out Levi brought up my previous post questioning his style. His answer was, "for the stage win." Fair enough. But more importantly, Levi F'n Leipheimer reads my blog!! Is there anything left to accomplish?

As for the race. I got dropped over the top of every climb and caught on again during the descents. Till the final climb up Snowbird, where I just got dropped.

While Ian Boswell managed to finish an outstanding 3rd overall, it was a lack luster race for me. But I was front grouping it more than the last few years so I guess you could call that half full.

Levi Leiphemer reads PaulMach.com!!

I can't be the only one asking why

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 19:52:59 GMT

Bib shorts over the jersey, that's weird. I don't know if it's banned in The Official Rules of the Euro Cyclist but I'm sure it's at least implied.

I once saw a guy wear his skin suit inside out to please his "sponsors." Yep, shammy on the outside. I've even put the pins on the inside of my skinsuit to be more aero. But bib shorts over the jersey is just plain weird.

Now consider that Levi is about a minute up on the GC that he's not even riding for. It begs the obvious question, why?

Maybe I'm over stepping my bounds by calling out the guy that is schooling everyone here in Utah, but I can't be the only one asking about this.

For those interested there is time gap data between me and Ian from yesterday's TT.

Al-tit-ude

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 21:19:11 GMT

The altitude here is making everyone crazy. Crazy enough to want to race I guess. Anyway, the first two real stages of the Tour of Utah are over and they've lived up to the expectations.

Wednesday was hot and humid just like Rob's home town of Regina, in Canada. About 80 miles with two major climbs. The first one wasn't that bad except for the feed zone a half mile from the top. That alone broke the field up, causing some dramas.

The second climb went a bit harder. Ian and I made it over the top in the front group and Frank caught back on soon after. That group had about 40 guys in it by the finish, but I've never made that front group in years past, so I was happy.

Yesterday featured Mt. Nebo. Once we got there it was 5 miles of steep climbing followed by 5 more of rolly uphill over 8000 feet. I got dropped once they started attacking about 35 minutes for the finish.

I caught up to a few guys and finished 21st, 4:20 down. But our man Ian Boswell rode to an impressive 3rd behind Levi and Mancebo. Just so everyone knows, I interviewed him before he was famous.

Like a double rainbow

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 04:33:31 GMT

The prologue of the Tour of Utah was intense. My only question is, "What does it mean?"

Anyway, short post for tonight. Basically felt like crap, saw 6:54 as my time when I crossed the line. Was a bit bumbed.

So I did the math. George Hincapie started 30 seconds behind me, I never got caught and he finished in 6:18. That raised significant questions. Thank you 10 years of post secondary education.

Final results had me at 6:25 in 17th place. Similar placing to last year, but I think the competion is better, so I'm happy.

In other news, Levi Leipheimer said hi to me and George Hincapie smiled and waved. I'm serious, have I ever lied on this blog?

Holy Hollywood Batman

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 21:47:02 GMT

Just wanted to a give a quick shout out to my Bissell teammate Dan Holloway on his National Championship. F'n awesome man!

Here's an excerpt from the Velonews article by Brian Holcombe.

...Holloway fought off tears, his body hunched over the bars of his Pinarello. "It hit hard," he said. "My dad's been the biggest supporter my whole career and this one's for him."

The solemn moment didn't last long, however, as the rider nicknamed "Hollywood" turned quickly to his confidence ahead of his rookie pro championships.

"It's huge," he said. "Not to sound cocky, but I had it coming. I think. If you look at my progression and my development, the people I've put around me really thought this could happen, so I think it was just about time, you know?"

Just so you know Dan, my wife thought you were lying about your penis again in that last paragraph. Either way, congratulations.

What's been happening

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 05:14:21 GMT

Why haven't I posted a blog in a while? Well, why is Justin Beiber so easy to make fun of? Some questions just don't have answers.

So what has been happening? Just a couple things other than the standard reading, riding and research.

First, I got a new domain, paulma.ch (.ch is for Switzerland, if you're wondering). Why? For the same reason I do most everything, because all the cool kids are doing it.

Domains like this all started way back with del.icio.us, but with Twitter, and url shortening, everybody is getting one. I'm using paulma.ch on my twitter account right now. How good is that?

I also released a couple updates to my hit Android app, Text Edit. I added a few quick features here and there, nothing major. Minus some bug fixes, that'll probably be it for Text Edit. There's nothing more I care to add.

The only thing I'm still looking to do is release the source code on GitHub or something. Why GitHub? Again, because it's the cool things. But more importantly, it'll be my little gift to the open source community that I've used and abused for over a decade.

Anyway, that is all.

Update: Text Edit's GitHub repository has been created and filled.

The rest of Cascade

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:06:26 GMT

I know it's been a few days since the race ended, but I'll post an update on last weeks Cascade Classic anyways.

The criterium was 4 corners in downtown Bend Saturday night. The road narrows between corners 3 and 4 so there was always a bunch of crazy wheel chopping. A ton of people were waiting for a crash at that 4th corner, but it was pretty clean there all night.

The crash, the one that tried to eat my arm, was right after the start finish. I don’t really know what happened, but I was going 30 mph, couldn't stop, hit someone, went over the bars and into a bike. The damage, chainring into the forearm.

Big props to the race doc who put 5 stitches into me right after the race. Someone said he did a sloppy job, but it was dark and I've been looking for a sweet scar for a while now.

Sunday featured the Awbrey Butte Circuit Race. Us and Fly V were motivated to light it up because the course is hard to defend on. After a couple hard laps we had Rob and Kyle up the road and Rob was only 1:40 down on GC. That put the pressure on.

About 10k from the finish, Darren Lill, of Fly V, put in a big attack just as all the United guys were done. It was a dangerous move since it was just Rory, the race leader, left at that point.

Ah, but it seems like there is always someone ready to step up and help. This time, Chris Jones from Team Type 1, was that guy. He buried it for about 5k into the final climb. I guess he was just bored.

It went crazy hard up that final climb anyway but about 30 guys still came to the line together. Frank and Andy sprinted for 2nd and 3rd respectively, so that was nice.

Overall, I was 17th which I’m okay with after my poor showing the first couple days. For the team it was one of those "glass half empty" kind of races. Lots of top 5 placings, but no wins.

The season goes on and the team will be at Elk Grove this weekend. For me, it's Tour of Utah in a few weeks.

More dramas from Cascade

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 03:11:04 GMT

It's been another few days here at the Cascade Cycling Classic. The wife is here and the weather is good.

Yesterday's TT was... not that great. Don't have much more to say about that. I just really need to learn how to time trial again.

Today featured the Cascade Lakes road races, the 84 mile one that finishes up at Mt. Bachelor. I felt a bit better than the previous days, so that was good. I covered a few moves, drank a bunch of water and went hard up the climb.

The big drama was the finish. They looped us around the Mt. Bachelor parking lot with cones. Taylor Sheldon, from Garmin, went down hard in one of the corners. It didn't look good, but the word is he’ll be okay.

Rob was ahead of the crash and finished 5th. I was somewhere in that group. After the last few days of subpar performances, it was good to race and contribute a bit today.

Tomorrow night features the Crit in downtown Bend. "Embrace the assh***," was Ben's advice. At least I think he was still talking about the race when he said that.

Back for more Cascade

paulmach@gmail.com (Paul Mach) — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 05:35:27 GMT

The wife and I are up in Bend this week for the Cascade Cycling Calssic. It's a cool race with cool housing in a cool town.

The 2 mile prologue was yesterday in the Old Mill District downtown. It went alright. I think I was 17th, but tied with 8 people on the same second. I was on the wrong side of that second.

Through a twisted series of events I came across this fun fact: Manhattan has a population density of over 70,000 people per square mile. So basically I could ride my bike around 70,000 people in less than 8 minutes. That pretty much blew my mind.

Today was the McKenzie Pass road race. It was only 75 miles with a climb in the middle and one at the finish.

There were some dramas over the first climb as the group was coming apart with a bad, or us, break off the front, but we figured it out.

The finish was a bit disappointing for me. I think I was 1:30 off the leaders. Last year was worse so I guess I can’t complain, but I'm really looking forward to a good finish on this course.

Tomorrow features a Time Trial, with the afternoon "off."