Michael Schott Memorial  Circuit Race Sunday April 5, 2009

Marblehead, MA
2.2 mile fast/rolling circuit race around Marblehead Neck
Promoted by CCB International
Held under  USA Cycling Permit
All USA Cycling rules apply

Any rider warming up/down on the course, once the races have started, can be disqualified

*Masters 35+, must be Cat: 1-4
*Women can race in any field, according to USCF rule 1K2 Entry fee includes USCF insurance surcharge. ANSI Approved Helmet required. No tank tops, aero bars, or mountain bikes
*Camera at the finish

Register @ www.BikeReg.com 

Online service fee applied based on Bikereg.com standard service fee rates.

Day-of-race registration: $30.00 ($25.00 for 4/5 field)

Please note that the race has filled in pre-registration the last 17 years

Rain or Shine!
No Refunds after 3/30/09
Questions or comments, contact:
Geoff Hamilton – 781-631-3111 (no calls after 8pm)
Race Day Check-in:  Located at Devereaux Beach
Sign-in begins at 7:00am, closes at 10:30am.

Direction
Take 128 North or South to 114 East (Exit 25A, Marblehead, and Salem).  At your second set of lights after coming off of 128, take a left (you'll see a gas station on your right)and then follow 114 East through Salem, past Salem State College, into Marblehead, approximately 6 miles.  Turn Right (at Fire Station) onto Ocean Ave, go through 1 set of lights,the registration area (Devereaux Beach) will 1/4 mile ahead on the right.

Great article by the Times: Link
Canadian Rider Has Made Unorthodox Climb to the Top By JULIET MACUR

Those who have heard the tale of Svein Tuft have wondered, could it possibly be true?

How he dropped out of school in the 10th grade, lured by the freedom of the outdoors. How he evolved into a barrel-chested woodsman with Paul Bunyan biceps. How he ventured, at 18, from his home in Canada into the wilderness on a $40 thrift-shop bike hooked to a homemade trailer.

They have learned of the way he traveled sparingly, towing only his camping gear, a sack of potatoes and his 80-pound dog, Bear. The way he drank from streams and ate beside an open fire. Or hopped trains across Canada, resting as the land flickered by.

Now 31, Tuft is out to prove that all the raw travel and personal drive can translate into something beyond his survival. Recruited by one of the world’s top cycling teams, he is about to begin a more disciplined journey. It starts next weekend with the Tour of California, where he will race with the Garmin-Slipstream squad, and is likely to continue this summer at the Tour de France.

“He’s a late, late bloomer who lived a lifestyle that has been completely incongruent with any professional cyclist out there,” Jonathan Vaughters, the team’s director, said. “In Europe, you are pressured to succeed by the time you are 18, and if you don’t do it by the time you are 21, then you’re done. But Svein? He’s somebody who has lived life according to how he wanted to live it.”

Tuft figured out he was a natural racer at 23. He was home from a cycling trip to Alaska when his father suggested he try racing. In his first event, a local road race, he was in the lead when he dropped out with a flat tire. Two races later, he won for the first time.

From there, he blossomed. But Tuft also felt trapped between a life in the outdoors and one in the structured world of professional competition.

Kevin and Mark Cunningham, owners of the Symmetrics Cycling team in Canada, found Tuft in 2004. He was mowing lawns. After racing in virtual anonymity for three professional teams, he had quit the sport because he said he did not want to be associated with its doping problems.

But the Cunninghams wanted him. They knew he had the potential to be one of the fastest cyclists in the world.

“At first, you have this idea that this guy’s a nut case,” Mark Cunningham said. “But he’s not. He’s super down to earth, kind and a straight shooter. I thought he was going to be this extreme sports, in-your-face guy. But he was the opposite.”

They coaxed Tuft onto their team with a promise that it would be clean and that he would be free to vanish into the mountains during the winter.

“We had to get used to saying, ‘Svein is missing,’ ” Kevin Cunningham said. “ ‘He’s AWOL again.’ ”

Last year, riding for Canada, Tuft surprised many by winning a silver medal at the world cycling championships in the time trial and also finishing seventh in that event at the Beijing Olympics. He won four gold medals at the Pan American Road and Track Championships.

Some say that was just a start.

A Long-Distance Pedigree

As a boy, Svein Tuft (pronounced Swayne) was known as Svein the Strong. He always knew he would not grow up to be a wimp.

His grandfather Arne Tuft, racing for Norway at the 1936 Winter Olympics, finished sixth in the grueling 50-kilometer cross-country skiing event.

His father, also named Arne, was drawn to Canada from Norway after reading Jack London’s “The Call of the Wild.” He started out in logging, then became a general contractor. Now, he camps in the Arizona desert for weeks without electricity or a phone.

Svein Tuft’s mother, Lesly Holness, is a fitness instructor. In Svein, she saw one determined boy. To her dismay, she said, he always enjoyed testing himself, with each challenge more extreme than the previous.

One Christmas, her son asked for an Army tent, which he pitched next to their house outside Langley, British Columbia. He spent the winter in it.

By 15, he had grown restless. His parents had separated, and he hated studying. He quit school.

“It wasn’t like I was into drugs or alcohol or anything,” Tuft said softly. “I wanted to explore, and I was searching for so many things. I just never felt right anywhere. At that age, you don’t know anything about yourself, and I was trying to find out who I was.”

For a few years, he was obsessed with mountain climbing. He rode a bike more than 50 miles from home into the mountains and stayed for weeks at a time, leaving his parents behind to worry. He said he and a friend once spent more than 24 hours hanging from a cliff face after their climbing rope snagged.

“He decided he was not going to do anything like the establishment,” Holness said. “It was very unsettling to all of us, but there was no stopping him.”

At 17, Tuft bought a used 10-speed. He welded together a trailer, using the frame of a heavy old BMX bike and the bottom of a plastic barrel.

And on one September day, after he had turned 18, he left with Bear, his German shepherd mix, and headed nearly 600 miles to the remote Bella Coola Valley in British Columbia. He said he rode 12 hours some days, pulling the trailer packed with about 200 pounds of gear and food — and his dog. When Tuft struggled to climb hills, Bear jumped out and sprinted along the roadside grass.

Tuft ate corn, beans or bannock, a flat bread. When there was a store around, he splurged on chocolate milk, which remains his favorite drink. He camped beneath spruce trees or open sky.

“A lot of people said, ‘Are you crazy, what are you doing?’ ” Tuft recalled. “But for me, it was all about being alive and learning how to get through a difficult situation. There were days that it was snowing and cold and you haven’t eaten enough that day to get the internal fire going. I really wanted to see how I’d react to that.”

But on that trip, he was ill equipped for the winter weather, which grew harsher as he climbed north. He wore only wool and brought no tent, just a bivouac sack and a blanket.

“When I was that age, I never thought I could die, but I thought, uh-oh, this is it,” he recalled. “I thought, how did you get yourself into this situation — what have you done?”

On a trip to Alaska in the spring, during which he covered more than 4,000 miles, he shared gravel roads with mining and oil trucks. People along the way asked about his journey and invited him to dinner, though he was obviously in need of a shower.

On one stretch of highway, his clothes were soaked, and he had a painful cough. In the distance, he spied an abandoned cabin. Inside, as if in a dream, he found kindling and a stove, jars of pasta and a bed. He slept there for four days.

Over time, bike touring became second nature. He worked odd jobs, like splitting wood, baling hay and painting fences. His hands grew rough.

“All of those wonderful adventurous stories of riding his bike to Alaska, the railroad-car jumping, yes, those are all true,” his mother said.

“But I want everybody to know that, no, Svein was not an orphan. He was raised by two loving parents. He had his own room, a trampoline, a motor scooter. But he was just looking for something else.”

A Racer Reborn

In 2001, within two years of his first bike race, Tuft was on the Canadian national team.

“I guess I really wanted to prove to people that I could do it,” he said. “You always don’t have to fit into one kind of mold.”

In 2003, he showed up for the Prime Alliance pro team’s training camp near Los Angeles. He had ridden there from Canada.

“He had this really long beard, and he smelled very bad,” said Vaughters, who was in his last season as a rider. “I remember thinking, O.K., this guy is completely different than the image of the typical European money-driven cyclist who buys Porsches in his spare time.”

But Tuft was not pleased with the lifestyle. During his career, he had seen performance-enhancing drugs ruin lives. He decided there was no future for him in the sport, so he quit.

But the Cunninghams soon came calling, convinced that this mountain man was worth the trouble. Eventually, Tuft the bike racer was reborn, though he still considered himself an outsider.

In 2006, after winning his third consecutive Canadian road time trial championship, he moved into a trailer on Kevin Cunningham’s property. It was the perfect combination of old life and new.

If the sport’s drug testers needed to find him, he would sometimes provide only vague directions, like “end of the logging road, up the trail head at the top of the ridge.”

Though upper-body weight is taboo for bike racers, he worked out so hard in the off-season that he would thicken to 190 pounds, from 170.

Kevin Cunningham warned him: “Do not do another push-up. You gain muscle so quickly, you will look as big as a grizzly.”

Teams offered him more money to leave Symmetrics, but he stayed out of loyalty.

Yet when his team folded last year under financial strain, Tuft spoke with Vaughters once again. They focused on the Garmin team’s antidoping stance and its relatively laid-back approach. They agreed that Tuft’s talents were well suited to certain parts of stage races like the Tour de France and to relatively flat races like Paris-Roubaix.

Kevin Cunningham reassured him: “Just be yourself. It will be more corporate, but you will be fine.”

At a training camp in December in Boulder, Colo., Tuft stopped to see a reflection of himself in a store window. He saw a cleanshaven face and cleanshaven head, a dress shirt tucked into dark pants and a gleaming BlackBerry in his hand.

He shuddered.

“I said to myself, ‘Whoa, who is that guy?’ ” he recalled. “No way is that me. No way.”

Most of his teammates were used to a transient life in hotel rooms, not on forest floors. They lived in Europe and liked designer clothing and French wine. Tuft knows he will soon move with his girlfriend to Girona, Spain, the team’s training base.

When this new life unnerves him, he said, he looks at a tattoo on his right forearm: We will never be here again. It was his mantra while on trips with Bear, who died seven years ago.

“It was by far the most content I’ve ever been,” he said. “My bike was a piece of junk. I had nowhere to go, no place to be. Didn’t have anyone telling me what to do. If I felt like lying on the side of the road, I did.”

At that moment, Tuft’s BlackBerry buzzed. It was someone from his new team.

He had to take the call.

Over this long weekend, I happened to thumb through the NY Times Obit section, as my father would say, to make sure my name wasn't listed.  In doing so, I came across a story that really hit home.  Barbara Warren, a 65 year old world-class triathlete had crashed in a weekend Triathlon while descending down a rather obscure hill.  In doing so, she found herself with a broken neck and paralyzed throughout her entire body. 

Lying in a hospital bed, conscious but unable to breath on her own, Barbara faced the biggest question of her life.  Should she go on with full knowledge that life as she knew it, the ability to be an athlete, was over?  Only able to blink her eyes, she communicated to her sister that she wanted to leave.

Think of the countless times you've gone down a hill just like the one Barbara fell on.  Think of the number of times you've averted that rock in the road, a car backing out of a driveway or any number of instances that could change a normal ride/run etc into a life changing event. 

There is a certain mundane ritual like experience to athletics and life for that matter, that can consume us over time.  What may have started as an unquenchable pursuit, often turns stale with the day to day rigors and monotony that surround.  Yet, at times we're reminded of the fragility that exists in all aspects of what we take for granted. 

So as you look for new ways to find your primordial spark, in whatever aspects you're lacking, consider the simplicity in merely 'being able' as your single greatest inspiration.

The following is an excellent observation written by Josh Horowitz.  Josh rides on the Elite team for Velo Club La Grange based in Southern California -- my former club.  Enjoy the read, take note and consider changes where necessary.  Thanks Josh for the great observations!

You Look Mah-velous: Cycling Style Etiquette

You could fill a library with all the rules in the unwritten book of cycling etiquette. Perhaps this is one of the reasons that bike racers don’t hit their prime until their mid 30’s. It takes that long to learn all the rules before you can really concentrate on riding strong! With the summer months and group rides aplenty, it’s time to take a scientifically-proven but tongue-in-cheek look at looking good on the bike…
Billy Crystal and his alter ego Fernando Llamas said it best when he mugged, “It is better to look good than to feel good, dah-ling.” The cyclist’s version goes something like, “It is better to look good than to ride good.” We can’t all be world champions or even win the sprint on the local club ride, but at least we can look cool going off the back.

Although I couldn’t possibly sum up every unwritten rule of cycling etiquette in just one article, below are the 13 most important rules to remember. Some will actually improve your riding, others will simply make you look good and the rest are just down right snobbish.

Helmets. Face it, helmets just aren’t cool. Nothing looks more pro than the tour rider cruising down the boulevard wearing nothing but a broken-in cycling cap. However, concussions and drooling out the side of your mouth are really lame, so wear your helmet. But for heaven’s sake, take it off when you walk into the coffee shop! Are you afraid of slipping and hitting your head on the counter? When worn, the helmet should be tilted as far forward on your head as possible and never at an angle. Cockeyed helmets are a sure sign of an amateur.

To look cool, take off the helmet and slip on your cycling cap the moment you arrive at your destination. To look Euro-cool, make sure to always wear your sunglasses on the outside of your helmet straps so the television cameras can see the brand logo on the ear pieces. And please, no neon colored helmets! White is the only acceptable helmet color.

Legs. We’ve all been asked a million times, why do cyclists shave their legs? Our answers range from aerodynamics to massage to wound care. But we all know the real reason. It makes us look smooth (in more way than one)! So whip out the shaving cream and the Bic and mow the lawn.

For the ultimate in cool, roll up the cuffs of your shorts for that extra 1/4 inch of tanning space. To look Euro-cool, always wear a pair of the ultra-cool Pez cycling socks. And please, no gym socks!

The Kit. Your jersey must match your shorts, which must match your arm warmers, which must match your socks. But under no circumstances should a replica pro team kit or a national/world champion kit be worn unless you’ve earned it. The only acceptable team kit is your own club kit. Retro wool kits are sometimes acceptable, but even that is iffy.

To look cool if you don’t belong to a club or a team, wear a stock Castelli or Assos kit but don’t mix and match. To be Euro-cool, wear the kit of an obscure European amateur team, but only if you have a story about how you spent the winter riding with them in Majorca to go along with it. Please, no century jerseys (I’m going to take some heat on that one), nothing with cartoon characters on it and never, under any circumstances, go jersey-less. Especially if you are wearing bibs.

* And a special note for women. As much as the guys on the group ride might like it, a jog-bra is not an acceptable substitute for a jersey. Wear the bra, but please throw a jersey on over it. It’s hot. You’re hot. But shorts and a jog-bra is just not.

iPods. I should say MP3 players, but let’s face it, an iPod is the only cool on-board music system. Of course legally, I have to recommend against wearing headphones out on the road, but since you’re going to do it anyway, here are a few guidelines. Never wear headphones on a group ride. Headphones on a group ride say two things. 1) You people are good enough to ride with, but not good enough to talk to or even listen to and 2) I’m not concerned with my own safety and I’m even less concerned with YOUR safety. There’s no faster way to become disliked by a group of cyclist than by showing up on a group ride with headphones, even if the music is off.

To look cool, remember that the smaller the headphone, the better. No 1985 walkman ear muff headphones please. Ear buds are the only acceptable iPod accessory. To look Euro-cool, make sure you are listening to an obscure independent British punk rocker or electronic group. And please, no Kraftwerk!

Clipping out. Hard to believe, but this one actually deserves its own paragraph. One of the easiest ways to determine the experience level of a cyclist is to see how early they clip out before coming to a stop. A novice rider will clip out as much as a block before a stop sign or red light. A real beginner will clip out a block before a green light, just on the off chance that it might turn red by the time they get to it.

To look cool, let the bike come to a full stop before clipping out. To look Eurocool, never clip out. Track stands are the only acceptable way to wait at a red light. And please, no basket-clips and no mountain bike shoes on the road bike! Wearing sneakers or mountain bike shoes on the road indicates that you intend to spend more time with your feet on the ground than in the pedals. You’re a cyclist, darn it, not a pedestrian!

The Friday Ride Hero. Although getting dropped on the hard Saturday group ride isn’t cool, there are actually more ways to look un-cool on the easy Friday recovery ride. The best way to look un-cool is by pushing the pace over 19 mph or by doing your intervals off the front of the ride. Friday rides are for recovery and socializing. You’re not going to impress anyone by ramping up the pace. Unfortunately, messing up the pace is just as easy to do on the hard group ride and this is where things get really complicated. Sprinting at the wrong moment, setting the wrong pace up a climb or pushing the tempo at the wrong time can draw just as much scorn as pushing the pace on a recovery ride. Get to know the etiquette of a group ride by doing it at least two or three times before even thinking about getting to the front.

To look cool, show up to the Friday ride with a cup of coffee from an independent bohemian coffee shop and sip on it throughout the ride. To look Euro-cool, skip the coffee and blueberry muffin after the ride in favor of an espresso and a croissant. And please, never order any drink that has whip cream spilling out over the top of the cup. You didn’t ride hard enough to burn off 20 grams of fat and 600 calories.

Group Ride Etiquette. Have you ever seen a pro team on a training ride? Side by side, shoulder to shoulder, quietly zipping along. Then, there is the club ride. You actually hear it before you see it. Slowing! Right Side! Stopping! Rolling! Hole! Then you see it. 25 riders spread out over an entire city block, three, sometimes four, wide. Weaving, swarming cars, running stop signs. Keep your group ride cool with the following four rules of thumb. 1) Never ride more than two abreast. 2) Never allow more than six inches distance between your front wheel to the rear wheel of the rider in front of you. 3) Maintain a distance, no more than 12 inches from your shoulder to the shoulder of the rider next to you. 4) It only takes one person to call things out. This should be the person at the front of the pack. Ideally, a little point of the hand is all it takes to indicate obstructions or turns. It shouldn’t take two dozen people yelling at the top of their lungs to make a ride run smoothly.

To look cool, keep the group tight, wheel to wheel and shoulder to shoulder. To look Euro-cool, only ride with other cyclist wearing the exact same kit. If this is not possible, make sure there are no more than three different kits in the pack and that there are at least three riders wearing each kit. And please, never swarm cars at stop lights or steer a large group of riders through a red light. It’s just not cool.

Carbon Wheels. Carbon wheels are for racing! Never under any circumstances should they be brought out on a training ride. Training wheels should be strong and heavy with lots and lots of spokes. Carbon wheels say to the group, I’m not strong enough to do this ride without my $2,000 feather weight wheels. If you have the money to tear up a carbon wheel set on the road, then you’d be better off spending it on a coach who will get you fit enough to keep up with the group ride on regular training wheels.

To be cool, ride with Bontrager flat proof tubes. They’re about four-times as heavy as regular tubes and they just about double your rolling resistance. To be Euro-cool, don’t tell anyone you’re riding with them. It’s enough to know for yourself that you can keep up with those weenies even on a 22-pound bike. And please, no deep dish carbon clinchers. Carbon wheels are race wheels and clinchers are for training. Tubulars are the only way to go on your carbons.

Ornaments and Accessories. This one is simple. No stuffed animals or figurines mounted to your handlebars no matter what it signifies to you. No mirrors on your helmet or your glasses. No reflector strips taped to your bike. No giant flashing lights (LEDs are ok).

To look cool, ride without a saddle bag. Put one small tube, a tiny pump and a tire lever in your middle back pocket. To look Euro-cool, ride without a saddle bag and with nothing in your pockets. This is cool because it means you must have a team car following you with all your supplies. And please, don’t plaster the stickers that came with your shoes or your glasses all over your bike unless your sponsorship contract with those companies specifically dictates that you must.

Cat 4 Marks. Otherwise known as a chain tattoo, this is what we called them back in the day before Category 5 existed. Nothing gives away a rookie faster than a black streak of grease on their calf. The experienced rider can actually get through an entire ride without rubbing up and down on their dirty chain.

To look cool, CLEAN YOUR CHAIN! To look Euro-cool, take your chain off once a week and soak it in degreaser along with the bearings from your bottom bracket and your headset (you old timers know what I’m talking about). And please, it’s one thing to get grease on your leg. It’s another thing to get it on your hands, your jersey, your face!

Shorts. MEN: there are many rules regarding shorts. First of all, they don’t exist. Forget about them. The only acceptable garments to wear are bibs, no exceptions. But please, throw out your bibs when they start to wear out. Enough anatomy is revealed by the skin tight Lycra, we don’t need to see a transparent butt panel. And this may seem obvious, but the jersey goes over the bibs!

To look cool, wear bibs, enough said. To look Euro cool, wear bib knickers or even bib tights. And please, don’t wear underwear under your shorts!

How to Dress for Weather. If the temperature is below 60 degrees Fahrenheit, you must wear knees or better yet, full leg warmers. If you go out of the house in 50 degree weather with bare legs, it doesn’t mean you’re tough, it just means you’re an idiot. In the summer, no matter how hot it gets, you must never wear a sleeveless jersey. Tan lines are the proud mark of a real cyclist. If you must get some additional ventilation, cut a vertical line along the inside seam of your sleeve with a pair of scissors. Not only will this help you stay cool, but it says, “my sponsors give me so many jerseys, I don’t mind wrecking one.”

To look cool, if you need to keep the sweat out of your eyes, wear a cycling cap, not a sweat band or a bandana. To look Euro-cool, just don’t sweat. And please, no arm warmers with a sleeveless jersey!

When to Dress. Believe it or not there are a whole bunch of rules regarding when to get dressed for a race or a ride. In general, the less time you spend in your chamois, the cooler. If you are riding to the start, you should get dressed just before you leave the house. Don’t eat breakfast or walk the dog in the morning in your full kit! The neighbours think you’re goofy enough for cycling as it is! If you are driving to the start and it is less than a 45 minute trip, it is ok to wear your bibs under a pair of regular shorts, but not your jersey or your gloves and especially not your helmet. Also, make sure the suspenders on your bibs are hanging down, (preferably on the outside of your street shorts) and not over your shoulders. If it is longer than a 45 minute drive to the start, you must bring all your cycling gear in a cycling specific duffle bag such as a Specialized or Rudy Project bag. Brown paper bags or shopping bags are never acceptable.

To look cool, wrap a towel around your waist when you change. Changing skirts are practical, but not very cool. To look Euro-cool, make sure it’s a white, thread bare towel taken from the cheap motel room that you and five teammates crammed into at your last stage race. And please, no bare butts in the parking lot. Once again, we see enough through the skin tight Lycra.

Once last time, if you can’t ride good, you might as well look good. And please remember, I don’t write these rules, I only live by them.



About Josh:
Josh Horowitz is a USCF Certified coach and an active Category 1 racer. For more information about his coaching services and any coaching questions you may have, check out his website at LiquidFitness.com. To find out more about the Liquid Cycling club, go to LiquidCycling.com

This was a new twist to the scene for '08.  A near 32K TT that was equal in descent as it was in ascent.  The temps were not all that bad but did heat up as the day went on.  There were about 85 riders or so, several CCB, NHCC, NEBC along with many other regional clubs.  As the sole VdMer, I was well represented by my immediate family support system - tantrums and all.

Full results can be found HERE.  I ended up 4 in the Cat 1-4 group and what appears to be either 5 or 6th total, there were some minor protests following the results.  (All $$ proceeds will go to the LAF). 

I've enclosed a topographic map that is courtesy of Doug Jansen.  If you have the time or interest, I would highly recommend you check out Doug's home page or his well named blog, HillJunkie.  He's got some great rides listed that all seem to offer climbing nirvana -- if you're into that.  Most appear to be regional to the Northeast.

So the Duathlon went well, I was having second thoughts about going as I've been racing quite a bit since last spring; duathlons, 5K's and those TT's all summer plus an occasional Chris ride... which can be even more taxing.    So I've been trying to be mindful of recovery the past month but still felt a bit on the edge and 5lbs heavier than during the spring Du's.  That being said, I went down there pretty well rested and feeling  quite relaxed; goal just enjoy the event.    First run, was a 19:23 for 3 miles, the bike went well for me; 30 min for 11 miles which gave me the 5th fastest bike leg overall . It was super windy, so most people had a slower bike leg than usual and I was pleased considering I try to ride hard but only tempo on the bike part.  The final run was really tough coming off the bike and I struggled with all my might to run a 13:13 for 2 miles.  End result was 17th overall out of almost 200 athletes and 2nd out of 17 in my age division which gave me a silver medal and some running gear for prizes.   I felt good same time at the spring but on a windy day and my transitions were a bit slower indicating a slight gain in fitness both on the run and bike.
So for me the racing season is over .....for a bit,...time to relax and train with little structure and just enjoy being outside, forgetting about up coming events and race specific intervals.