Last weekend was the first of the Texas Cup track races, and since they were at the Superdrome in Frisco, it was a relatively easy trip to get there. We also had several teammates planning to attend, which always makes a race weekend that much better.
Noah and I have race wheels, but because I'm a headcase about messing that stuff up, we typically only use them for championship events. This was easy enough to sort out for Noah, currently, because his rear wheel holds his expensive fancy powermeter, so putting on a race wheel means taking off the more exensive powermeter. He kept his "regular" wheel on there, which was one less thing to worry about. I put on a fancy, carbon, tri-spoke thing on the rear and intended to use the deep profile carbon wheel in the front.
That was the plan. In the future, if the plan calls for me to use a wrench or other bike tool, someone needs to duct tape my hands together behind my back.
Because Noah's bike required no adjustment, we simply made sure the tires were inflated and the bolts for the wheels were snug. He was up on the track in a matter of minutes.
The weekend before at the races, I "spun off" a cog on my regular rear wheel. No big deal, usually, as many track wheels allow you to run a cog on either side. The problem with this was that I "spun off" a cog on one side a year or so ago, so I only had the one side with threads anymore. That is, until I ruined the good side too. To get through the rest of that night, I borrowed a wheel from my teamnut, Troy.
I took the opportunity to sort out a wheel for warming up, which would be separate from my fancy race wheel. I'd have the easier gear on the warm up wheel, and when ready, I'd put the fast wheel on and get after it. It all sounds so simple.
After a couple laps around the short inner loop of the track, I took a few good, hard pedal strokes to get up on the track. It felt like I'd thrown out an anchor.
Under real load, the wheel cocked sideways a bit and the tire was rubbing against the frame. No good. I got off the track and carried my bike back to the pit. Started fiddling with the wheel to get it recentered, but all the adjusting was actually messing with the tightness of the bearings in the hub. That's not supposed to happen. After messing with it about 5 minutes past my limit in patience, and realizing that I needed to warm up more than I needed to figure out what was going on, I put on my fancy carbon tri-spoke rear wheel.
This wheel is cool! Continental tubular tire. It makes a cool sound that is the sound of fast. It is pretty light. It is pretty stiff. It is fast. Faster than me, but that isn't a prerequisite when they sell them. They take your money and give you the wheel. Worked for me.
Well, it would have worked for me if there wasn't all that racket going on. I couldn't hear the cool sound that only deep aerodynamic wheels make because something was wrong with the hub on this wheel as well. It was too loose, which made the wheel move a few noisy millimeters side to side. Every clank and bang made me see $ signs. After a few laps of hoping it fixed itself, I was forced to do something about it when the wheel cocked sideways a bit, just like my other wheel did. I came down to the pit, again, and started using wrenches in a way that suggested I knew what I was doing.
Troy bailed me out again by letting me use his back up race wheel (a different kind of tri-spoke), so we moved cogs around, slapped that in, and bolted it down. I took this opportunity to then put on my carbon front wheel, as there was just a few more minutes of warm up left.
That's when I stripped out the valve extention to inflate the tire.
No problem, though, because I actually brought my FRONT tri-spoke, which would have worked fine had I brought the adapter to air it up. By now, though, I was irritated enough that damaging bike parts felt good, not bad, so I jammed a pump head that was a little too big into the opening, and aired that thing up. And then the announcer announced "the track is now closed to warm up. Please clear the track."
His next announcement brought Noah's race to the rail. They started, there were a couple of attacks, and eventually Noah broke away. He had a solid lead coming into the final straight. That's when his wheel broke loose and the chain came off. 35 meters to go, tire rubbing the frame, chain dangling on the chainstay and off of the crank, and there's no brakes or anything of the sort on a track bike. It was a photo finish for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd. Noah managed to take that win, no thanks to his mechanic.
In what has to be one of the worst cases of judgement on our team, they let me get his wheel back on and centered and such.
A few minutes later, I was able to race with no drama. After that race, though, a new racer, who I can only imagine assumed I new what I was doing with tools based upon the amount of time I had a tool in hand before the race, asked me to help her with her bike.
We got through that day with no more mechanical issues. When we got home, I glued that valve extender to the valve of my deep profile front wheel, and it was just after I turned it tight on it's last thread that I wondered if the valve was even open. Without three words of swearing at myself, I went inside away from bike parts and tools.
On Sunday, for day #2 of the Texas Cup weekend, it was windy. Too windy for the front tri-spoke, in my opinion, so I put on my normal, hunk of junk front wheel. The tri-spoke Troy loaned me was still on the rear, even though Rob fixed the hub on my own tri-spoke. I was afraid to take one wheel off and put on another, understandably.
Front wheels don't take too much brains to put on, and I didn't have any trouble with the installation. It was, however, on my 3rd or 4th lap of warm up that I broke a spoke on it. I know, "oh no!" as if it was just another thing to go wrong, but see, it is very rare to break a front spoke. The wheel doesn't really get much stress on it. No torque is applied. Not that I had a spare spoke with me, but when a front spoke goes, in my opinion, the wheel is compromised, which is exactly what you want to be thinking when dropping down the 45 degree banking ramping it up to 38 or so mph, like I was. The subsequent loss of trueness caused the remaining intact spokes to knock off the sensor of my computer. My stupid, expensive powermeter computer.
Back in the pit, I grabbed my carbon deep profile wheel, put a pump on the valve extender, and hoped for the sake of any children nearby that the thing would take air. It did. Sigh of relief.
I returned to the track to finish warming up, and there was a "pop-pop-pop-pop" sound coming from the front wheel.
The thing about track bikes is that they are so simple. Bolt on wheels. No brakes. One gear. Simple. Basic. Good grief.
Oh, that sound? Get this. It was a bubble in the glue for the tubular. It was popping on every rotation of the wheel. Go slow, pop.....pop.....pop. Go fast, pop..pop..pop. Attack in the race, popopopopop.
I didn't mess with it.
Noah raced the cat 4's, which was the biggest field of the day, and the 13-14. He had a good day. Finished around 8th in the 4's races, and was on his way to a hat trick in the 13-14.
On his way, because just after the finish line in the 2nd race of the 13-14s, about 20m after winning, he was plowed into from behind. He crashed.
Damage to him wasn't too much. Rash, and some brusing. He was more pissed than anything, but when he learned that his expensive powermeter rear wheel was toast, the first thing he said about it was, "Am I going to be in trouble?"
While he was getting bandaged up, someone asked him if he was going to do the last race. He said, "If my bike is ok". With that, I took his bike to the pit, borrowed a rear wheel (yes, from Troy), Ken helped me get the cog and wheel changed out (Noah has to run a mandated gear because he's in the 13-14yr age group) and Troy, um, bent back Noah's handlebars so that is was only a couple inches away from straight instead of the "ouch" it was.
I believe Noah took second in that next race.
When I got home, I unloaded the gear from the car to the garage. My bike felt a little odd as I rolled it in. That's the way it feels when the front tire is going flat.
There was track racing last Friday night, but we didn't go.
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