DClog

Difference

This image reminds me of a "joke" a European friend told me.

Q: What's the most famous King and Queen in America?
A: Burger King and Dairy Queen

Kinda sad, really.

P-R Photos & Results

Last weekend's Perry-Roubaix race provided some good photo-ops as well as tough bike racing. I added some favorites w/comments in my photo album.

Here's the complete Perry-Roubaix photos and Perry-Roubaix results

Park City Cycling Fest

Masters Nationals Road Cycling Championships is going on in Park City, Utah all this week. Monday was the Time Trial.

Rick Rhiengans (Aarons/L5flyers) called me with an update from this big event. His TT time was excellent, he rode his absolute best and agrees that his fitness and skills are far better than this time last year. That made me feel pretty good because I have been coaching him for the past 9 months.

Looking down the TT results list I see many friends including Rick Pfeiffer, Kent Bostick, and more, including the amazing John Sinibaldi. I met Sinibaldi in 1997 and 1998 Championships in Tallahasee, FL

John Sinibaldi was a member of two OLYMPIC TEAMS in 1932 and 1936. He set records for the 100K Time Trial of 2:25:09 which stood for 50 years before it was broken. He is now 91 year old and owns many NATIONAL MASTERS TIME TRIALS CHAMPIONSHIP JERSEYS. John live in St. Petersburg, Florida and attends many of the group rides. Five or six years ago I went to a group ride in Tampa, FL with the Holt's of Ringling Bicycles in Bradenton and found myself riding alongside John Sinibaldi... he remembered me!

Floridian: Nine decades of wheels in motion

2005 Perry-Roubaix

Perry-Roubaix -- Dan's 45+ Omnium

Time Trial
15K @ 21:40 = 25.81 avg
Course profile: rolling out and back w/crosswinds
Result: 2nd place (15 seconds off the winner's pace)

Criterium
15.5 miles @ 40 min = 23.25 avg
Course profile: Very technical, 5 corners including one tight 180
Result: 5th place (I owed one sprint lead-out, now paid in full)

Road Race
60 miles @ 2:45 = 21.82 avg
Course profile: 12 mile loop w/2 hills and 1.5 miles of dirt roads (loose and sandy) 5 x's
Result: 2nd place

In the RR the 35+ and 45+ were combined for a field of about 40 riders. I was first on the dirt and first off in the first lap (lessons learned from GTC rides), the carnage behind pared down the field. Each lap I tried to be first on the dirt and each lap the field shrunk. By the fourth lap there were only twelve riders remaining, eight 35+ and four 45+ riders. Much of the road race was ridden at a relatively easy pace, except for the dirt roads which were full tilt.

I felt good at the end for the sprint, but there was no one to direct the riders back into the Fairgrounds/Ag Center and the chaos that ensued as we sprinted all around the roundabout and cones only 200 meters before the finish line created a very confusing and hazardous situation. There was much protesting about the finish but nothing was changed, other than the referees made sure it didn't occur in the other races. Oh well, it was very exciting and no one got hurt - I had a blast!

Omnium (overall GC)
Result: 2nd place

Powered by Stolen MOJO

Shey is an Expert NORBA mountain bike racer currently ranked #1 in Georgia and #2 in the USA. I've been coaching him for almost two years and he has consistantly improved. I attribute his success to his hard work and dedication and my coaching hasn't screwed him up either.

The other day we were discussing his recent victory at a big regional race. Shey had attacked the one rider strong enough to stay with him, and when he looked back the rider had hung his head defeated. I proceeded to explain my "MOJO theory" to him.

My theory, based in absolutley no scientific fact, is that when one competitor completey dominates another, the victor steals the defeated one's MOJO. I can't prove the "MOJO theory", but I know when one is winning it is easier to go harder, faster, longer. However when one is being beaten, to even continue is difficult.

-----Original Message----- From: Lindner, Shey Sent: Wednesday, June 22, 2005 7:26 AM To: dan@dancoy.com Subject: NORBA rankings Good morning Dan, I just wanted to thank you for the great coaching advice over the last few years, it seams we have reached #2 overall nationally in the NORBA Expert overall (all age groups). Shey Lindner NORBA B0195152 Fueled with stolen MOJO

Rachel Cycling Video

Windows Media Video
6.3 MB
You should right-click on the link and select "Save Target As...", then play the Windows Media Video from your computer.

Rachel Cycling

Father's Day

The family gathered for the IMAX theater then P.F. Chang's for dinner.

Dan, Bev, Rachel and Ruth

Mimosa bloom

Ruth and Dan

Suwanee Criterium

Suwanee Cycling Classic
Masters 35+/45+
18.2 miles @ 42:40 = 25.5 mph avg

It was a big loop, it seemed like about a mile and a half each lap, so it felt more like a circuit race rather than a criterium. The Masters 35+ and 45+ raced together making a field of about 35 or 40 riders I believe. Gerard Remery, who also had just completed the Cat 1/2/3 race, was my only GTC teammate. Gerard animated the race with attacks at times and controlled the front at other times.

Rick Rhiengans (Aarons/L5Flyers) took off on a daring solo flyer with about 4 to go and held on until the next to last lap. "Big" Jon (Smith Barney) and Gerard had shut down the valiant attempt at escape, so it would come down to a field sprint. The Smith Barney train took control going into the last corner (they had just rehersed this tactic in the 1/2/3 field sprint). I was a little too close to the fight for Tony Scott's (Smith Barney) wheel for my comfort and a touch of the brakes sent me backwards about eight places.

The referees scoring the finish were not really prepared for the rush of sprinting cyclist, and their finish line cameras were woefully inadequate. The actual placings beyond the first couple of finishers is debatable at best, but they scored me as third place in the 45+.

Mostly Good

Coaching competitive cyclist, playing jazz guitar professionally, training/racing and living in the Southeast. That along with my family and friends - it's mostly good.

Acknowledgment and Affirmation

Tracy Saine (John Deere)

From: Tracy Saine Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 3:42 PM To: Dan Coy Dan, You are a genius tactician! I did the race exactly like we talked about and won by 2 minutes. I'll post some details later. THANK YOU! I wouldn't have done the race that way without your advice. I OWE YOU ONE!!! Tracy

This past Thursday, Tracy had come over to the house to pick up his Maxxis tire order (through the Pro Purchase discount with GTC), and we discussed in detail, specific racing strategies for the 80-mile 3-gap course and ways of dealing with the regional category III racers. I really gave him very few options, he had to attack and not look back. I explained how the many seconds gained on the climbs would add up and the few seconds lost on the descents and flats would not be enough make up the difference. I basically reminded him of his achievements in those mountains and gave him the confidence to attack all the way to the finish.

-----Original Message----- From: Dan Coy To: Tracy Saine Date: Tue, 7 Jun 2005 4:03 PM Tracy, OFFENSE is the best defense. Don't let any attacks go up the road. Have your teammates set a brutal tempo from the start! On the climbs use (sacrifice) your best climbers until they can no longer control the front. Between the climbs use your strongest flatlanders. If your team can NOT dominate the pace, YOU must isolate the stronger riders. YOU should use every incline to increase the pressure and eliminate riders, including your weaker teammates (they should not chase you under any circumstances - following another chasing rider is OK though). YOU can climb those gaps better than anyone else can. Do NOT sit around and wait for someone else to attack. You have done the 3-gap TT and you know you can get around that loop all by yourself faster than anyone else around here can. You must get back to "Walmart Gap" alone, solo or with no more than one or two other riders. If you have only one rider with you at the end, you know what to do - I've seen you do it! If you get back to Dohlenega in a group of any size, your odds of winning are greatly reduced. Any other rider I would give completely different advice, but YOU should win this race in a most profound and definitive way! Dan

-----Original Message----- From: Tracy Saine Sent: Tuesday, June 07, 2005 2:15 PM To: Dan Coy Dan, I'm planning on doing the Dahlonega race. Any thoughts on strategy??? We have to do 2 laps (~80 miles) so I think it might turn into a war of attrition! Tracy

*** Tracy's Race Report ***

EPIC!!! That's the only way to describe this one. We had a field of probably 50-60 riders, and I'd guess that about half that many finished. We had riders coming in for 30+ minutes after the finish. I bet nobody finished with more than a couple of other riders and most people came in all alone. I've never been in a race like this one, but I wish there were more like it! I really wanted to do well in this race since I grew up in Dahlonega, still have a lot of family and friends there and ride up there almost every weekend. I was totally stressing out about the strategy aspect though - especially once I found out we had to do 2 laps. I asked Dan for advice, and he was VERY adamant that I needed to be aggressive. The words that stuck in my head were "do not waste any of the climbs!" I was very apprehensive about doing the race like he said but decided to give it a go and see what happened. Here it is broken down by section of the race:

High School to R-Ranch
Like Dan suggested, I worked my way to the front and made the first attack on the curvy climb before the road flattens out and drops back down to R-Ranch. I'm sure everyone thought I was CRAZY for taking off so early in an 84-mile race (especially with all that was ahead!) so they just let me go. I got out of sight quickly because the road is very twisty in that section and started up Woody's by myself.

Woody's (1)
I decided not to go up Woody's extremely hard but hard enough so that if the pack was going to catch me, it was hopefully going to hurt some people. I got caught about halfway up the climb. The pack had thinned out somewhat so I think that first move accomplished the goal and helped set the tone for the day. I took the KOM sprint at the top and latched onto an L5 Flyers guy for the descent. We actually got a nice gap on the pack so I knew this guy would be a great wheel to follow on the downhills.

Valley (1)
This section was non-eventful. I just sat in and tried to stay somewhat close to the front in order to be in a good position for Wolfpen.

Wolfpen (1)
I wanted to hit this climb hard for a couple of reasons: 1) It's my favorite and 2) I wanted to get a gap so that I could do as much of that scary descent on my own as possible. I went hard and was the first over the top. The L5 Flyers guy came around me as we started going down so I got on his wheel again. We got down without any issues and without anybody trying to pass us.

Neel's (1)
This was the most painful climb of the race for me. I'm not sure who was on the front setting the pace, but it HURT! Part of the time, I think it was the L5 Flyers guy and part of the time I think it was a nice guy that I'm going to refer to as 'Big Calves' because I swear his calves were bigger than his thighs! I seriously thought I might be dropped. I was cursing Dan and his 'advice' at this point, thinking that I had gone out too hard, too soon and was now facing the consequences. It turns out Wolfpen and this climb must have hurt a lot of others as well because by the time we reached the top of Neel's, the 'lead pack' was down to 7.

Woody's (2)
I was still in worry mode at this point so I just sat on the back and didn't make any moves. This one didn't hurt nearly as much as Neel's so by the top, I started to feel like maybe I would be okay after all. There were no attacks or anything, but the guy that led us up most of the climb was looking VERY strong (and would soon make his move). I'm going to call him 'ECU' because it seems like that's what his kit had written on the back of it.

Valley (2)
I think the mileage and the climbs were starting to take their toll because I noticed several riders shaking and rubbing their legs during this section. ECU must have noticed too because this is where he made his move. He didn't really attack us but just kind of 'rode away' from the group. We discussed among ourselves that we would just try to keep him in sight and then try to reel him in on the climb up Wolfpen. I'm not sure exactly what happened (mechanical, people touched wheels, ?), but apparently we lost a rider or two somewhere in this section, one being the very strong climbing & descending L5Flyers guy. That was fortunate for us but unfortunate for him because he was looking strong.

Wolfpen (2)
Same thing as before, I tried to go up this one as hard as I could. I was first over the top among our group, but Big Calves and a Land Rover rider from SC were not far behind. We were getting some scary time checks though. I think ECU had ~1:30 on us at the start of the climb and closer to ~2:00 at the top. I was getting worried that the winning move had been made and I had missed it.

Neel's (2)
Big Calves, Land Rover and I went up Neel's as hard as we could to try and bring back some time on ECU. Not happening! I think the time check we got at the top of Neel's was ~2:50 so we were losing ground fast! I told them we needed to bomb the descent and give it one more shot to see if we could pull back any time so that's what we did. The Land Rover guy was a fantastic descender so I just latched on to his wheel and hung on. We actually dropped Big Calves so once we reached the bottom, it was just the two of us. The latest time check was ~2:20 so we pulled back some time, but I was afraid it probably wasn't enough with only ~12 miles to go.

Turner's Corner to R-Ranch
Land Rover and I continued to work really well together during this section. We weren't getting any time checks so I wasn't sure if we were gaining ground or not, but I think we were both giving it all that we had on our pulls. I tested the waters on a couple of the rollers and thought that he might be starting to weaken a little, but I wasn't totally sure. I just knew I didn't want to go to the finish with him because he looked like he would be a very good sprinter. I went all out on the last climb leading up to R-Ranch and opened up a very nice gap. So at this point, it's ECU in 1st, me in 2nd, Land Rover in 3rd and Big Calves in 4th with only ~7 miles to go.

R-Ranch to High School
The climb up to R-Ranch seemed A LOT longer than I remembered it being, but I kept going hard until it leveled out. Just as it started to level out, I saw a rider in the distance going so slow it's almost like he's stopped. I THINK I can make out 'ECU' on his jersey and sure enough, it's our guy! His jersey is completely unzipped, he looks like he's about to die and I swear he couldn't have been going more than 4 or 5 mph. Turns out he had completely cracked and had actually thrown up numerous times. I was afraid he would try and jump on my wheel so I tried to be quiet and zoom by him as fast as possible! Chasing the police escort, fighting off cramps in both legs and praying nobody would catch me is about all I remember from the rest of the race. I wish I had known my time gap because I might could have enjoyed the finish a little more. Turns out I got 1st by 2 minutes, Big Calves fought back to get 2nd, Land Rover was 3rd, I'm not sure who was 4th and I think ECU fell to 5th.

Time Trial & Omnium : I burned every match I had (and then some!) in the RR so I wasn't expecting to do much in the TT. I think I ended up 8th which put me 2nd in the omnium. They counted the TT as much as the RR which I was not expecting and did not find out about until afterwards (not that I would have been able to ride it any faster had I known!). Big Calves got 2nd in the TT so he ended up 1st in the omnium. They didn't factor in my 2 minute gap from the RR (which I thought was unfair!), but this RR was my number one goal for the season so for me, it was a great weekend.

Running The Ravine Loop

Since it's my R&R week, I decided to take a break from the cycling today and go for a run with the canine critters. Rachel tagged along and we all went jogging around the Ravine Loop. The heat and humidity was serious by the time we started, which was sometime shortly after noon, so the pace had to be eased back a notch. It's a tough loop with hills and stairs and I suspect it is nearly 5K long from the parking lot and back. We eased into the tempo from brisk walk to a steady jog, and finished in about 30 minutes.

After a quick clean-up we went over the Atlanta Bread Company, near the Mall of GA, for a sandwich and salad. The guy taking our order recognized me and it turns out he is a GTC member, and the owner of that ABC. We got top-notch service and left with a couple complimentary loaves of bread - Thanks Chris!

On the way back home we stopped in at the Starbucks across the street from the mall. The on-duty manager recognized me and told me all about his current band, a trio with guitarist Rick Pruett and drummer Shannon Kori. Those guys are a couple of great musicians who happen to be friends of mine and live in this neck of the woods too. No complimentary coffee though - that's cool.

Long Time No Update

Sorry to be absent from the blogosphere so long.

Music
Along with several fun and profitable gigs, last week saw the return of DC3 to the recording studio. We got some good takes on a couple of my originals and a few unique arrangements of covers. The players are Keith on tubs, Mack tickling the ivories and yours truly. After another recording session or two, we'll move along to the editing, mix down and mastering phases of this project.

Cycling
The annual training plan has finally reached the last week of the "Build 2" phase. This, after completing nine weeks of "Base 1-3" and six weeks of "Build 1". The following two weeks will be the "Peak" phase, which is in sync with the Masters National Championships (Park City, Utah) at the end of this month, *BUT* I have opted to pass on the Championship event due to a multitude of reasons, none of which include health and fitness. It's depressing so we won't talk about it, however I will do some regional races instead.

The final push for this last Build phase came this weekend with Saturday's hill repeats (ouch) and 20 minute AT intervals. Followed by Sunday's hot and humid 70+ mile adventure all the way to the edge of dehydration and elevated levels of internal temperature. Thankfully Theron was there to guide me back to the land of H2O, potassium, sodium and air conditioning. Thanks for the wheel, mate!

Today and the remainder of this week's focus is on R&R... and it has arrived not a minute too soon.

Train in the Rain

Days of non-stop rain can put a damper on one's training plans. So how do I deal with it when I have to go out and ride? While it is not my favorite way to train, it's actually not far from it.

I start with a layer of some warming liniment like Tiger Balm (liquid) on my legs followed by a layer of Vaseline. I chose arm warmers today, not the thermal ones, just regular spandex. A cap under my helmet. Booties or shoe covers. Clear or yellow lenses in the sunglasses. Rain cape - I prefer to cut off the long sleeves because it helps with ventilation. For the bike I ride my training wheels with slightly less pressure in the tires. The Polar heart rate monitor is wrapped in Saran Wrap.

That's it. Let's go splash in some puddles!