Happy pi day...

Just got back from training camp in Lexington VA. We dropped 12-13 hours of riding in three days. All of it was pretty intense. Friday was a wet 90 mi jaunt in the mounains that put us on the blue ridge parkway for a while. The descent into buena vista was awesome. A bit sketchy but there is something about bombing downhill at 45+mph in the rain. It made the climb up Vesuvius worth it.

It was a shame that is was cloudy most of the time we were there as the area has some awesome views. Below are a few pix of the hills surrounding our weekend home base.


But the sun did come out for a little while on Sunday morning. Lovely.

See the lonely boy out on the weekend...

With the roads in the greater (lesser?) B-more area still being iffy, the boys on the team decided that it would be a good idea to head south for some miles on the bike. The plan was simple, drive to Richmond, VA and set up a cyclist shanty town in out teammate Jeff's new house. I'm fairly certain that his wife had no idea of what agreeing to host us would entail. The short of it is that six smelly bike racers monopolize nearly every square inch of the house, eat every of morsel of food available, and keep her husband from doing work around the house while we ride our bikes. She was probably less then pleased to hear that I found out that I could throw their french bulldog (Monty) a good 10 feet across the room from a seated position. I'm guessing that we won't be seeing Jeff for a few weeks.

The riding was good. I met up with a local shop ride that left at 9AM. This required me to be up and about my house at 5AM, but I logged a few extra hours of chamois time by kitting up before I left the house; over all a net gain. After 15-20 mins the rest of my teammates met up with the ride. It took a while to work our way to the front but once there we went into a nice smooth rotation. Some other guys pitched in, but many were just there to suck a wheel or eight. For the record , I'm fine with this behavior. We all have different abilities and goals. That said, I have little patience for guys who sit on and then complain that the pace was super high, and then dropped off after "like 20 mins". Yeah, well get your ass up there and put in some turns, or shut your trap.

We logged 55 or so miles at a good clip (22 mph) with the group and then rolled back to Jeff's place to refuel. Then we sat in the sun outside of Starbucks for a good hour or so while Todd drank espresso and Steven's tire went flat. After caffeinating and re-inflating we put in another solid 40+ miles of eight-man double-paceline work. We were all pretty cashed and were looking forward to some good eats by the end of that ride.

Sunday brought warmer temps, and a more relaxed 70+ miler. Big props to Rick's buddy John who set me up with his bike for sunday. I had suffered a bike malfunction at the end of Saturday's ride, and would have been S.O.L. with out his assistance.

Overall it was a great weekend. It was nice to get most of the crew back together for some team bonding. Racing starts in ~4 weeks and then it will be time to get down to business winning races.

Can you dig it!!!!

Baltimore slowly began to dig itself out from under the 20" of fluff that we received over the past day and a half. Most of the neighbors were out shoveling walkways, a welcome change from Urbana-Champaign where nobody shovels their sidewalks, and the expected banter of "where the hell are we gonna put all this stuff" was had. Back when I was in school at Binghamton we had this thing called "alternate side of the street parking". For those not familiar on odd days of the month, you can only park on the side of the street with odd numbered houses, and on even days, the even side of the street. Normally this is a huge pain in the ass, especially if you don't drive on a daily basis, because you have to move your car every day from Nov. to March. However when it snows it is a godsend as the plows come through and you move to the other side of the road into a nice clean parking space. It is kinda like the quote from Jacob's Ladder:

So, if you're frightened of dying and... and you're holding on, you'll see devils tearing your life away. But if you've made your peace, then the devils are really angels, freeing you from the earth.

Baltimore does not have alternate side of the street parking rules, which means that I'll be riding in slop for the next few days, blah.

After digging out, I met up with Alex in fed hill for an espresso a some snow biking. After downing our black gold, we headed over to Federal Hill (the hill/park for which the neighborhood is named). Kids were out sledding which brings back memories of my youth as the big spot to sled in our town was just across from my back yard. It was a bit cold, but all in all it was a nice day for fun in the snow. Here is a shot of Alex rolling toward the downhill.
While at the park we watched at least three kids slam into parked cars at the bottom of the hill. All parties involved were OK, but it was a little disturbing seeing a kid go face first into the grill of a Ford. After cruising around the neighborhood for a while, I rolled back to Medfield. It was delightful to have more than one gear on my bike, as I'm used to rolling on the single speed madwagon within city limits. While the gradient is pretty steady from the harbor up, i'm usualy a bit over geared (and under geared on the way down). It makes me consider other options for a commuter, but I doubt that I'll take any action in the near future.

Running on empty...

It until today it had  been quite some time since I've bonked on a ride.   Frankly I had forgotten how much it sucks.  Upon hearing reports of my "buffet disorder" several of my midwestern friends have chastized me for fogetting to partake in some sweet treats that can only be provided by that whore that every cyclist knows all too well, Little Debbie.

Oatmeal Cream Pies, Zebra Cakes, Cosmic Brownies, etc. we all have our favorites, but surprisingly most of the folks out here are not big on convenience store runs mid ride.  Hell, I even get odd looks from my teammates when I buy a 48 oz fountain drink, pound half and then top off my bottles with the balance.

Rest assured my my midwestern friends, I have not forgotten your teachings, rather it was some bad luck and an unwillingness to smack the taste out of a cashier's mouth that led to my demise today.  We stopped at a store mid ride and to my dismay they didn't have ANY of the aforementioned trollop's wares for sale.  I settled on a big ass cookie and a bottle of coke that was supposed to be $0.99 but rang up at $1.49  after some debate with the cashier over the price of said cola,  I was forced to buy only the coke as it was all that my postdoctoral salary was able to afford.  Two hours later my cola buzz wore off and I stared to fade. 

All in all it was a four on the bourbometer:

I Fall Down...

The Pro Road season has started down in Qatar which means that the crashing has begun as well.

First mass start stage and poor Tom Steels gets chopped by Brownie and literally kisses the pavement. Mind you this is not one of those euro cheek pecks that the podium girls give, rather more like the sloppy tonsil hockey that takes place at KAM's which often results in a trip to the hospital. Seriously this sucks pretty bad. He broke his shoulder blade in the season opener, now he's probably got umpteen months of recovery.

In more local news, it is official, I am a fat sack of shit. I did a little testing on the bike today and my month long hiatus has reduced me to the level of a mediocre CAT V racer. I'll put it out there right now, if you have ever wanted to whoop my ass in a sprint, now is the time. The good news is that there is nowhere to go but up from here. See you on the road, I'll be the guy huddled in the gutter waiting for someone to put me out of my misery.

Faux Pas...

So a post on the TSK's bloggy reminded me of an encounter I had while in Cali. Near the midpoint of my four and a half hour trek through Santiago canyon, I caught sight of a rider ahead of me. I notched the pace up a little to see if I could reel him in for a little company. Upon catching said rider I notice that he is wearing a jersey decorated in red white and blue. I pull along side say hi, but he appears to be ensconced in an "iPod Cocoon". I take this a a sign that he is not wanting to be sociable, and he would rather be alone with his music. I continue on at my tempo up the next climb only to realize that he has latched firmly to my wheel. As we crest the hill I ease off and attempt to start conversation a second time to determine if i need to do a "Hubbard Drop". He responds by pulling an earbud out and we chat a bit. Still a bit put off by his earlier dis, after a little banter I drop the bomb regarding his jersey. It came out as "Is that an 'earned' jersey?", he looked at me befuddled, so i rephrased, "where did you get that jersey". These words were chosen carefully as it is hard to tell if it was an actual national championship jersey, or one that looks like it that is available in some catalogues. He responds, "Park City". I congratulate him and ask what discipline etc. It turns out that this guy, Kerry Farrell, won the Masters 45-49 Road Race in 2005. We continued our ride for another 15 miles or so till he got back to his hotel in Irvine, and enjoyed some decent conversation along the way.

The moral of the story is, if you come across some one in a stars and bars jersey, simply ask where they got their jersey, if they say "performance" feel free to drop the hubbard, but be prepared that the person next to you might be a national champ.

Toast...

Man, I'm towards the end of my last hard week of BASE 1 training and I'm feeling it. I hit the gym yesterday and combined with all of the climbing I did while in Cali my legs are pretty crispy. I put in a solid 3 hours today with my left quad getting pretty achy in the last 40 mins or so. I likely strained it a bit over the past few days, and am looking forward to a rest week to help keep the little kinks from becoming major problems.

Hopefully my powertap will arrive next week so that I can do some testing to establish training zones before starting my second base period.

Enjoy the weekend.

Santiago Canyon...

I planned (or rather Adam planned for me) a nice long ride on my last day in SoCal. Eighty four miles with 6300 ft of climbing for good measure.


Most of the climbing was stuffed in the beginning of the ride, but the rollers along the Pacific Coast made the last thirty miles pretty tough. I also got a little lost in Irvine so I got a bonus four miles in. All in all I banged out 88 miles in 4:29:59. Not nearly the insanity that TSK has done over the past few days. That kid is not the tall "slow" kid that he'd like you all to believe. I'm just glad he is my teammate.

The ride took me through Santiago Canyon which had some awesome views which my camera phone will not do justice.


My flight to Illinois leaves at 6:45 AM PST. It'll be an early start, but it should get me home before the sun sets in the midwest. If any of you clowns are back in C-U, drop me a line and we'll ride.

It never Rains in Southern California...

"Seems it never rains in southern California
Seems I've often heard that kind of talk before
It never rains in California, but girl don't they warn ya
It pours, man it pours."

-Albert Hammond

Fortunately it doesn't pour all day, and the rain had cleared up by the afternoon.

So my sister's fiance, Adam, took me on a nice three hour ride today. It was about 50 miles with 3000 ft of climbing. We worked our way up to Laguna Beach via some inland roads with some good rollers. Upon arriving at Laguna Beach, Adam told me that we'd be doing the "Top of the World" climb, which climbs from the coast to an awesome 1000 ft vista over the course of two miles. I was totally in the red on the steep sections and was glad when we reached the top. After a super fun descent we cruised down the PCH back home.

All in all the riding out here is pretty good. The roads are a busy, but there a bike lanes everywhere so dealing with traffic is not too bad. I'm a bit spoiled living in Champaign as a 5 min ride puts you out in the countryside with having only a few pick-ups pass you every few miles.

Tomorrow will consist of some riding and then going to some vineyards with the family. It wouldn't be the holidays without some booze.