The OA training camp began today in Windsor, CA.  In attendance we have: moi, Jim (Portland, OR), Lakchsman (San Jose, CA), Ben (San Fran, CA), Justin (Redwood, CA), and Andy (Graton, CA). 

Today Jim and I did ~3 hours.  Jim says of the ride, "Easy.  Flat.  Sunny day."  I headed out for another hour afterwards.

Tomorrow we're headed to the coast.

I love California.  I really do.  I saw a whale today for the first time.  

Today the 6 of us headed out to the coast.  We stopped for a few photo opps and made up a couple of sprint lines.  I think Ben and Justin are tied now on sprint points.  Andy rode like a manimal on Coleman Valley.  Ouch.  Jim and Lakschman showed true grit to make it over Coleman Valley road after first missing the turn and adding a few extra miles to their journey. 

Tonight Andy and I went to a screening of "Raw Wheels," a movie about a vegan cyclist from the city who falls in love with meat-eating waitress in a small town.  It was great.  The theme song is my new anthem: "you can ride for hours eatin' veggies all day running on raw power!"

The suffering started today.  We started with Jim, Lakschman, Sami, John, Andy, Ben, Justin, Emily, et moi.  Jim and Lakschman peeled off near Geyserville, while the rest of us headed up to Cloverdale and over the Geysers.  This is a stunning climb in northern Sonoma County. 

On the way home, I got some video coverage.

Team Paceline:

Ben finishes the ride:

It was an epic one today.  Can you sense the apprehension of what lies ahead as we head out?




The group stayed together together to Cazadero.

Then Sami, Jon, Lakschman, and Jim peeled off, while Andy, Justin, Emily, Ben, and I charged ahead into the mountains.  We made it the top of King Ridge Rd without too much suffering.


But then, miles later, fatigue set in and the road turned up and up and up.


Can you imagine how we felt after this?

I can tell you no matter how much we hurt, we'd rather be riding than fishing...

What a weekend!  God knows how many feet of climbing.  9 veg athletes.  4 solid days of training.  2 new recruits to the team.  1 box of dates.  And no animals harmed.

I'd like to thank Beljum Budder, Bio-Lube and Clif Bar for their product sponsorship for the event.

Mark your calendars for our team launch party at Clif Bar in Berkeley, CA on Thursday, March 29th! More details coming soon.

Click here to register for the 2007 Tour d'Organics series.

• Santa Cruz - August 25th
• Sebastopol - September 16th
• Portland - October 6th
  

It wasn't a spectacular win by any means, but after 4 years away from bike racing it felt good to win the first race of the year.

Here's how it went down: A small field of 14 riders including Ben Lyon, Justin Lucke, and myself from the OA team p/b by VegNews Magazine lined up for the 90 minute Pro/1/2/3 race. [For those unfamiliar with bike racing the numbers indicate the category of riders.  I'm a category 1, the highest ranked amateur.]  A couple laps into the race, the officials called a prime lap (a prize for the winner of the lap).  Justin led me out for the prime, which I won.   Steve Cozza, a professional rider with Team Slipstream, quickly bridged up to me, and that was the race.  Steve did the lion's share of the work, while I held on for dear life.  We lapped the field in a matter of 20 minutes or so.  Steve was excited because he had never lapped the field on this course.

[Side note: Steve is on the Slipstream Tour of California team, meaning the dude is fit now.  He was using this race as training.  He had already been out that morning and ridden Trinity Grade 3 times.  This fact put me in my place.]

When we lapped the field, the group left was down to 6 riders.  For the remainder of the race, Steve would take monster pulls on the front, while the rest of us sat on.  A couple of times, Steve just slipped away, and Justin and I had to dig to bring him back.  On the final lap, Steve led out the sprint, and I finished just in front of him to take the win.

I have to send a special thanks to Rene and her volunteers for sticking through the rain to put on this event.  Oh, and many thanks to Team Vegan cheerleaders Andy, Charity, and Keri for their support!

The Cherry Pie Criterium in Napa is generally considered the season opener for Northern California.  With lovely weather for the day, I excepted a good turnout for this race.

The OA team of Ben Lyon, Justin Lucke, and myself rode from my home in Sebastopol to the race.  At just over 3 hours of riding time, it was a little more than we expected, and Justin and I had to push the pace a bit to make it there on time. 

The team's goal for today was to find our legs and get comfortable racing with the big boys.  Several pro teams including BMC, Colavita, and Kodak Gallery/Sierra Nevada were there in full force.  Also the "anti-organic" team, California Giant, had a strong contigent there.  Their sponsors include Cal Giant, one of the largest conventional strawberry growers in the US, Soilfume, and Weyerhaeuser.  Pesticides and deforestation all rolled into one team.

My wife Charity came out today and took some photos of the race.








Where you see me there is about where I finished.

I got blood test results back today.  I had a lipid profile, comprehensive metabolic panel, and a hemogram done.  I just wanted to make sure all checks out OK.

Since I've been eating a vegan diet now for over 4 years, I know it's shocking that I'm healthy and not sickly anemic.  But my lipid profile is good with below average risk for the various indicators.  The only thing slightly out of the reference range in the metabolic panel was bilirubin, an indicator of liver function.  My value was 1.6mg/dL, where the reference range is 0.2-1.5 mg/dL.  Dr. Dina said that since the other liver indicators didn't show any abnormalities, it's nothing to worry about.  Plus, looking at a previous blood test from 2002, bilirubin was slightly elevated then too.  So maybe it's just me.

As far as hematocrit goes, I measured in at 45%. 

This coming Tuesday the Tour of California will climb over Trinity Grade on its way from Santa Rosa to Sacramento.  Today I rode up it twice.

I look forward to seeing how fast the big guns ride up.  I know Levi and the other local pros frequent this climb for training.  I scaled the 1320' feet and 3 miles in under 19 minutes today for both efforts at fast pace but not all out.  According to the climbs list, this is an "elite" time.  Of course, the elite time for Cavedale is sub 28:30, where Levi's unofficial record is 20:30, which is almost unbelievable.  He had to have booster jets.

 

OrganicAthlete is coming to town near you!  Host this group of vegan athletes, so we can share our message of why and how to eat a plant-based diet. 

Check out the current speaking engagements here.

Today's training was 90 miles, 6500' of climbing and just over 5 hours of riding on a day that felt more like July than February.  On a ride like this, I probably burn close to 4000 calories.  So how does a raw vegan consume enough food to compensate for this energy expenditure?

Watch the video.

Now, it's been about 2 hours since I finished the ride, and I've had around 15 bananas, 1/2 a papaya, and 1/2 a pineapple.  I'm sure I'll have another banana smoothie before I have a large salad for dinner [and when I say large I mean like most people would think it's enough salad for 20 people].

Watching the live coverage of the Tour of California, then walking out and watching it roll through was pretty damn cool I have to say.  And, as I mentioned in today's Fruit of the Wise, I'm more amped than ever to have an OrganicAthlete team in a races like this.

Some will ask. "well, why don't you enter?"  It's just not that easy.  The OrganicAthlete team, though young and full of heart, is short on several things that could get in race like this: a pro license, athletic depth, experience, staff, results, and money.  I'll go over these in more detail to give you a sense of how far we have to go.

Pro License
In order to even hope to get an invitation to the Tour of California, a team must be registered with the Union Cyclist International (UCI) as a professional team.  In the US, USA Cycling handles the processing of pro teams.  To be a pro team you need a minimum of 8 riders and a max of 16.  The majority of riders must have a racing age of under 28.  There are also about $10000 in fees associated with registering as a pro team, but this is the least of the worries.

Athletic Depth
I might've been able to hang on to the field on today's stage, but our team riders would have SUFFERED today.   We have some guys who are up and coming for sure, but we're are nowhere near capable of the speed, duration, and power the rest of the field calls easy.   To be able to compete in a race like the Tour of California, our athletes need at least 1-2 more seasons of development to be able to handle a load like this.

Experience
We are a hopeful group of aspiring racers.  In some circles, this means "pack fodder."  In others it means "DFL."  But regardless of where we finish in the races this year, our team has to gain the experience of the work it takes to race at the top.  The Hard Road is a movie that explains this well.  I was just beginning to understand the mental strength required of pro cycling when I stopped racing in 2002.  It's all coming back to me quickly, but I still have a long way to go.

Staff
Right now, our team "staff" is yours truly.  In all but a few exceptions in pro cycling, the role of team manager is someone other than a rider.  I have a hard enough time keeping up with my own training and life, then through on running a team and managing an organization and it gets a little crazy.  [NOTE: I am presently looking for a team manager - someone who believes in the mission of what the OA team is all about and has the passion to see that it grows]

Results
1st in the Apple Pie Criterium is not enough.

Money
Sure, sponsoring a pro cycling team is *relatively* inexpensive compared to a full ad campaign at the Super Bowl, but giving riders a couple jerseys and a pat on the back just won't cut it for racing at the pro level.  The team needs a minimum of $250,000 to play.  Right now, that's 2.5x OrganicAthlete's entire budget. 

We've got a ways to go as you can see, but I'm cheering this team on.  Are you?

Let me know if you're coming!

I'm excited to announce that Organic Spa Magazine has signed on as the presenting sponsor of the Tour d'Organics and as a team sponsor of the OrganicAthlete Cycling Team.

I'm also pleased that Community Alliance with Family Farmers (CAFF) has signed as an organizing partner for the Tour d'Organics Santa Cruz.  Like Ecotrust in Portland, CAFF is helping OrganicAthlete create a better event each year we do it.

Don't forget to register before the first day of Spring to save 10%!
 

As I look forward to the weekends, I feel like a kid looking forward to going to an amusement park.  I'm stoked to be racing my bike.  The Snelling Road Race was no execption.  Ben and I headed out Saturday morning, as the race started in the early afternoon.  After 3 hours of driving through the suburban wasteland known as the Central Valley, we arrived in Snelling, a quaint little farm town northeast of Merced.





With wind, rough roads, and rolling hills, the Pro/1/2 race started fast and stayed fast.  For 6 laps of a roughly 12 mile curcuit, the field wound its way through the farm country.  Teams like Cal Giant, BPG, Webcor, Colavita, Davis Bike Club, and Eric Wohlberg (an eight-man team of one) tried and tried to force a move, but it was not until the end of lap 4 that a break of 7 finally rolled away.

I could sense the break was about to go as we entered the roughest section of the course, but I was about 10 bikes to far back to do anything about it.  The race was game over at that point.  BPG tried to bring the break back, but they weren't making any ground.  Coming in for the field sprint, I felt like going for it, but I didn't quite have the legs.  I ended up rolling in somewhere in the top 30 (out of the ~100 starters, less than half probably finished both due a large number of flat tires and the high speeds).

After the race, I found Ben and Justin who had both dropped out, and we watched Emily finish.  She looked great coming into the sprint, but she faded as the drag race came to the line.  "Oh well," she said, "I was in too big of a gear."

That night we went out to eat at the only vegetarian restaurant in town, New Stars Vegetarian Restaurant.  They were very welcoming to our group, and if you're ever in Merced, check them out.



We woke up Sunday morning to the sound of pouring rain.  My motivation to ride a couple hours before the race cracked with that noise. 

The Original Merced Criterium, as it is known, uses some of the same roads as next weekend's Merco Cycling Classic, but this race is much smaller by comparison.  In the women's race, Emily covered as many moves as she could on her own, but a break finally escaped.  At the finish, Emily polished off her sprinting legs to finish 7th on the day.

The men's race had a much smaller field than the day before of maybe 30 riders.  With 8 or 9 Cal Giant riders in this race, I decided to sit and watch until the race was at least halfway over.  So while I surfed the back of the field, I watched Ben getting his feet wet (literally) in the Pro/1/2 field.  He looked great, and I thought for sure he would meet his goal of finishing.  It wasn't to be, but I think within a couple of months he'll be right up there in the mix.

Around the halfway point, the winning break of 5 riders went up the road, and I was not in it.   Then I figured I would wait for the finish to at least get a top ten.  With 2 laps remaining, I moved right to the front, and I thought, "I should attack now."  But I didn't have the guts to do it, instead I went for the field sprint and finished around 12th place on the day.

In all, I was pleased with the weekend.  I feel good about how I raced.  I'm putting myself in the front and where I need to be.  I'm especially please that the team picked up yet another new team member this weekend.  Akira Wong, a Category 1 rider from San Francisco is joining the OA team!  More on this soon.

In the meantime, make a donation to support OrganicAthlete and Team Vegan!