Gone!

The moto rapido now resides in the helpful hands of our friends at Bikeman awaiting shipment to merry ole Chicago. While I was there I got to see my future El Mariachi (as soon as I get the coin scrapped together that is). Beautiful curves and just waiting to be ridden hard.

Speaking of beautiful, I caught a look at the new bikeman winter jacket. Freakin sweet! Windblock outer and a soft fleecy liner. Super comfy and probably pretty warm too. This would make a great christmas present (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Ever wonder what pain looks like? Well here is what last Wednesday's group ride looked like. You can tell when I got to Camden and started the ride with others because my heartrate quickly rocketed up from the 130's-140's up to 160's-170's and cresting over 180 on a few occasions. Lovely.

Its outa here!

Sorry (yet again) for the lack of posts recently, we've been busy building an arc to float on outa here when the rain is done. Gee-sus did it rain and blow the last couple of days. I'm not sure what that means about tomorrow's group ride of death, weather looks iffy, but hopefully it'll be nice enough that I can at least get outside. Last night saw me spinning to the Climb Right Carmichael video. Damn that was hard but if you've got less than an hour to ride and can't get outside it'll make the time worth it.

A couple of days ago I listed the Moto Rapido up on MTBR and as of this morning, it officially belongs to someone else. The cashola is in my pay pal account waiting for me. Now I just have to get to the shop and ship it out. I almost sold the fuel today as well but it looks like that one fell through for now. Now I just need to get the fuel and van dessel up on MTBR and I'll be in business. MTBR's classifieds kick ass by the way. It only costs $2 (with no commission) to list an item and you can post as ton of photos no problem and they don't seem to have the spam people trying to suck you of money. Use them. I'm now very close to ordering the El Mariachi (yay!)

Expecting the crappy weather to come, Marcy, Brynna and I went out for a ride on Saturday, soaking in the last of the sunny weather. B is really starting to like riding in her trailer and can now tolerate her helmet so things are looking good for some daddy/daughter spins this summer.

its on

Yowzer, time to take the bandages off of my eyes and see if the bleeding has stopped. Yup, seem to be ok. For a while last night I wasn't so sure. After I had peeled off from the group ride to make the trek back to the car (another 18 ish miles away) I was so cooked that I had blurry vision. When I got home and tried to read the nutrition label on a carton or NuTrish milk I had to squint and close one eye in order to read it. Yeah, it was a good ride.

Some stats:

Overall time: only 3:20 but to be honest, that was all I could muster. Wednesday's will get longer.

Distance: 58 miles

Max heart rate observed: 183

Heart rate range during the endless 2 man pacelines: 170's

Suffering: as high as it gets

It was a sweet ass ride and hopefully I'll be doing them weekly through the summer (except for rest weeks of course). Rides like that remind me of why I love group riding so much. When you ride solo all of the time it can be tough to push yourself hard enough to really see improvement in anaerobic abilities but a couple hours of a spirited group road ride will force you to push harder than you think is possible. On many occasions I was begging for mercy but refused to let myself let up. Suffer now or suck in the races I guess.

Respect

I wield an amazing amount of power and respect around the office. So much so that my co-workers made this little gem which they then e-mailed to everyone and posted in our reception area. Nice.

The next phase

Easter Weekend marked the beginning of my next phase of training launching me into Build 2 leading up to my first race in May. After the rest week I find my legs feeling especially fresh which is a very good thing. Not only because race season starts soon but also because tomorrow is the first Road Ride From Hell (RRFH) of the summer consisting of the ride into Camden, the group ride and then the ride home. Hopefully the legs are ready for it.

Easter also marked some enthusiasm from B about riding her trike and her willingness to wear her helmet again. Thank god for that, its been a struggle getting her to accept it again but she seems to be there again and just in time for trailer season.

Sorry mom

Woo-hooo, bring on the weekend! Talk about some sucky weather for riding. First the temps drop back into the 20’s and 30’s (30’s in February is sweet but sucks serious donkey ass in April) add in some light rain and then top it off with 1’+ of wet heavy snow and what do you get? That’s right, endless trainer hours. Thankfully for me, this crap just so happened to coincide with a rest week so it turned out to be ok. I’ve had some nice, easy trainer spins, a little cyclo-core work and some extra sleep. This should be just what the doctor ordered because at the beginning of the week, the thought of riding in the nasty weather had about as much appeal as running around with Jason’s chamois over my head for a day. I suspect that even if this hadn’t been scheduled as a rest week I would have made it one anyway because as Mr. Friel says, “Listen to your body”. My body wanted a rest apparently. This weekend, if the weather turns around, I’ll try to get some road mileage in.

Speaking of chamois’ I’ve got about five pair of shorts with the chamois falling out (I suspect the massive power I produce blew the stitches, or maybe it’s the massive gas, one or the other) and my mother has graciously agreed to fix them for me. I made sure she realized that she’d be working in an area that sees some serious cheek and scrote time. She seemed ok with it though as long as they were well washed but maybe I’ll throw in an exorcism too, just in case. In a couple of weeks I’ll be able to use all of my shorts again, hooray for me.

In more interesting, less disgusting news, I ordered my race wheels for the season the other day. It’s basically the same build as last year with Hope P2 hubs, db spokes and alloy nips but the rim choice has changed. I’ve decided to try out the Stans Arch rims. They’re about the same weight as last years Delgado Disc rims and the Bonty rims I was also considering but the big difference is that with their special bead hook, its much easier to run them tubeless without having the tire bead fail and you don’t need to use the conversion kits to get them to work, you just put in some Stans juice, pump it up and you’re ready to go. That’s the theory at least, we’ll see how well it works. If it doesn’t work, I’ll throw a tube in and I’ll be running the same wheels as everyone else, no harm done.

A little artistic shot by Marcy of the Moto Rapido as I get it ready to go on the auction block.

Be sure to watch.

I heard from fellow teammate Mary that a former competitor of mine (and many others in Maine) Daniel Vallaincourt will be racing in the US Open Cycling Championships this Saturday. In a bewildering move, NBC will actually be broadcasting two hours of it. Live even! With the stank-ass weather that we have coming for the next week, I'm sure I'll be hunkered down watching it. It'll be sweet to see a dude I've raced directly against many times duking it out with some of the country's best.

Also, in breaking news, I've reached my goal weight for the season! Since New Year's I've shed 12-ish pounds and am now back to the weight I was at in high school. Back when I was a scrawny bastard with a hella sweet bowl cut. This puts me a full 10 pounds lower than I was for most of last season and at least 5 lbs lighter than I've ever been since I started racing. It will be interesting to see how this translates in my riding. I would think that at a minimum, my climbing will improve since I won't be schlepping that extra weight over each climb.

Week in the can.

Yesterday finished off another pretty decent week saddle wise. Actually, considering the amount of time I spent working last week including a couple of 12+ hour days, it should be considered outstanding. To end the week right I planned a 60+ mile road ride up to my parents place while Marcy and B were at a baby shower (shudder). Off topic but have you ever been to one of those gems? I was forced to go to one a few years back and I don't think I've ever wanted to take my own life quite so strongly before. You can only oohh and aahh at cute little onsies for so long before you're looking for the gun cabinet or at least a bottle of clorox to chug.

Anyway, the plan was to hit up as many hills on the way up as possible. With this in mind I decided to do Climb-o-rama which would take me over some pretty nice stuff but it wasn't going to be quite long enough so I decided to tack on additional miles at the end to get me to my goal. It turned out to be a pretty sweet ride under beautiful, sunny skies and 50-ish degree temps. At the end I got in 3:40 saddle time and 62 miles. Damn good for me this time of year. Last year I was only able to pull off a couple of these rides and this year I already have several 50+ milers in. Hopefully this means I'm in for a good season.

First big climb of the day. Not sure what I was thinking by pulling a camera out while on a hill that touched 19%. Click on the pic and you'll see I was at 14% and a whopping 6.2 mph.

Hippee house at the top of the climb.

In the distance you can see the final climb of the day. My parents live at the top of it. Its a mile or so long with the first portion hovering in the 10% range than the final 1/2 mile easing out to about 5-6%. A real nasty way to end the ride. No cool down for me!

enough!

Ok, seriously, could I be any more gay for Bikeman? With the addition of the killer Lazer helmet, I am now, officially, a rolling bikeman billboard. Helmet, check; cycling cap, check; longsleeve jersey, check; shorts, check; beaded thong, check. If Bikeman.com were a person, I'd probably do 'em.

Check out this killer ride I did Tuesday after work. In preperation for Killer Tuesday's this summer, I figured I'd better start getting the legs used to the mileage. Tuesday was a start with a planned 3.5-4 hr ride after work. I fell a bit short because of a late start and a nearly dead blinkie light but I did manage 3:15 and 55 miles before darkness shut me down. Not bad after working a full 9 1/2 hr day. Check out the Motion Based info below. You can ignore all of the heart rate info on the motion based site though. I accidently started the gps this morning before clearing the memory so today's info f'd up the readings. The route info is good though!

(click on the image)

Oh yeah, remember when I said I was done with Racin Rick for a while? Well, as soon as I posted that I got the urge to post again. Weird. Tell a kid he can't do something and all of a sudden thats all he wants to do. Maybe I'll just do weekly posts for a while. Yeah, that sounds good.

Toes up.

Racin Rick is going toes up for a while. Between lack of time and not much to write about, I've found it increasingly hard to create posts. As a result, I'm going to take a break for a while. Maybe when the race season gears up, I'll start blogging again but who knows.

So, enjoy the silence while it lasts!

new lid!

I got word the other day that my new brain bucket is in and ready to pick up anytime. Its damn good timing too because we are quickly approaching the days when I'll no longer be wearing a balaclava or fleece riding cap and when I do, my noggin won't be liking my current helmet. Apparently my melon has changed shape slightly since buying the helmet 4 years ago. At the time, it fit me like a glove but now it puts uncomfortable pressure on my forehead. Enough so that I sometimes develop a headache during a long ride and am left with a red impression on my forehead for a few hours afterwards. Fun stuff. The retention system for the lazer helmet should fix that. Essentially, instead of the helmet sitting on your head with adjustments only on the rear, the Lazer has a floating retention system that sits free from the helmet shell so your noggin never actually touches the shell. Pretty ingenious stuff because it means that the helmet can more easily conform to oddly shaped heads (like mine). Is it wrong that I'm so excited about a helmet?

Another wet diaper

Man am I getting sick of these wet and/or dirty commutes! As usual (recently at least) this morning's commute was nasty as hell. When I got up this morning the weather channel was saying it was cloudy in our area but no precip. I glanced outside to be sure and the pavement looked wet but I couldn't see any actual rain coming down so I started to get ready. The temp was hovering between 35 and 40 which is always a hard temp for me. Do I wear my leg warmers and run the risk of being cold or do I put on the insulated tights and run the risk of overheating. Initially I decided on the leg warmers this morning but at the last minute changed my mind and put on the tights. Man was I glad I did because I was greated with a nice, wet, slushy, drizzly commute. Yip-frikin-eee. Within 10 minutes of starting out, I had so much slush thrown up on my ass that I thought I was going to get frost bite. It reminded me of a story my brother told me about when he ran cross country in college and a teamate got slush in his shorts during a race and ended up getting a bit-o-frost-nip on his junk. Thankfully, I wasn't in that boat but the cheeks were definitely cold.

By the time I rolled into the office my bike and I were so wet and covered with road grit that I felt like I was wearing a loaded diaper. Most uncomfortable. My bike so so nasty that I actually took it into the building and rinsed it off in the shower so that it wouldn't have the grit and salt on it all day eating away at it. Hope the boss doesn't find out!

As we speak, I have a chamois air freshener in my space. Needing to dry my shorts before this afternoon's ride home, I set them and my tights and socks up in front of a portable heater with a fan so I'm sure the whole design space here smells like damp ass. Nice.

As much as I love winter and riding in the winter, I really can't wait for the change to happen so that I don't have to deal with this crap much longer. Be cold or be warm, none of the inbetween nonsense.

Before the snow all melted in the last week, we had prime snowmobile riding conditions (finally!) so the pooch and I went out for a spin. Here is the uber exciting video from the trek. Some day, I'll teach that dog some trail etiquette.

Hmmm, thats weird

This week marks rest week number three, seperating the base 3 and build 1 periods. As a result, the saddle time was supposed to be minimal. Unfortunately (kind of) the beginning of the rest week just so happened to coincide with the beginning of some beautiful weather. Not one to pass up such nice weather and knowing that rain was to be coming in on Wednesday I decided to get some good rides in on Monday and Tuesday and then let the rest of the week become the recovery time. Sounded simple enough. Until Tuesday night at least.

A little background first. With me trying to ride in the morning 2-3 times a week and Marcy trying to get to the gym the same amount we have set up a flexible schedule to allow us to do just that every other day. One day I'll take B to daycare so Marcy can get to the gym and then the next day (assuming its good weather) we'll switch so that I can ride.

So, back to the topic at hand. Tuesday night Marcy saw the weather and noticed that it was going to be nice out again Wednesday morning so she told me I should ride in to work and she'd pick me up on her way home after work despite the fact that it was her turn to go to the gym. Normally, after hearing those words, I'd turn into Hyper-Hypo Man and sprint around the house getting my shit together like a giddy little kid. On this occasion, however, because I had already got in a bunch of riding this week and wanting Marcy to get her gym time in, I declined. And that is where the weirdness started.

We spent the next hour arguing about who would do what. Me trying to convince Marcy she should go to the gym and Marcy telling me (not trying to convince mind you) that I was riding in. I've been married long enough to know that no matter what you argue about with your wife, eventually you will lose. Even if you somehow miraculously win an argument there will be consequences. Oh boy, will there be consequences. So even though I knew that I was right and it really was Marcy's turn there was no arguing with her. Bringing up facts would have only made her more mad. So guess what? Thats right, Marcy MADE me ride to work on Wednesday. Life is tough.

Road trip!

I'm geeked. From Aug 4-11 the UCI is holding the Montreal-Boston Tour, a real road race with top calibre road teams that ends on Sunday Aug 11 in Boston. It looks to be in the style of the Tours of Georgia and California. Hopefully it'll be successful because it would be sweet to have a race like that so close to home. Marcy and I may have to sneak down to catch a stage or two.

Speaking of road trips, check out this read from Bikeman teammate Lisle Gilbert's experience down at the brutal La Ruta De Los Conquistadores.

Some random thoughts

Spring is definitely on its way. Saturday saw me out with the pooch on what was probably the last snowmobile trail ride of the season. The conditions were primo with good traction, nice temps and glorious sunshine. Sunday saw VERY warm temps (for this time of year at least) some rain and a severe eroding of the snowbase. I may try for another trail ride soon if the temps dip again. Fingers crossed because I really do enjoy riding the snowmobile trails and mud season just sucks too much.

The IMBA trail crew has chosen the Camden Snow Bowl for a trail weekend sometime in September (have I said this before?) so I’m looking forward to some more primo trails over Camden way soon.

Oh yeah, and Marcy has convinced me to go ahead and sell a couple of my bikes to fund a new El Mariachi. I talked about doing it last year but never pulled the bullet because of costs but with Salsa now offering the full bike package the deal is just too good to pass up.

Pitty me

Today marks the end of another unremarkable work week ride wise. Its been cold as tits this week so I haven't had the motivation to commute back and forth to work at all. Besides Monday's 3+ hr road ride its been all trainer all the time. Not a whole lot of fun but at least I've had my brothers PS3 here so I've been able to spin my troubles away while racing and blowing up other cars. Good fun when you have no real plans for the session.

The plan for this afternoon is to ride the mountain bike home but considering I have developed a sore throat that is so bad it feels like I have a blow torch in my throat. If I wasn't so manly, I probably would have whined like a baby last night. Ok, I whined so much I think Marcy wanted to cuff me up-side the melon. What is it with guys that makes us so tough when it comes to physical endeavors but such pusses when we get the least bit sick? I can fall on my bike resulting in cuts, scrapes, bruises etc and hardly blink an eye but give me congestion and a low grade fever and I'll curl up in the fetal position on the floor and cry for mommy. Anyway, if I feel well enough to ride this afternoon, I hope to get in a couple hours of snowy goodness.

welcome back

sorry, long time no blog. I guess I just didn't have anything to say last week. Not that I usually do, mind you, but apparently last week was extra special boring. The end of the week marked the beginning of Marcy and my long ski weekend. Originally, we were supposed to go to Jay Peak in Vermont but opted for Saddleback in Rangeley instead. Shorter drive, cheaper lift tickets etc... Turned out to be a damn fine weekend. It snowed all day Friday on our way up leaving us with 14-16" of fresh for our first day of skiing on Saturday. Unfortunately for Marcy, most of the snow was blown into the woods during Friday's winds. It turned out to be good for me though since I prefer to ski in the woods anyway. There was so much powder in the woods that when I fell (which happened often) I would sink in up to my waist minimum, sometimes up to my chest. It was insane. After skiing, we went out snowshoeing in that same powder. It was hard work but so worth it.

We stopped off for a photo-op of me "hucking" off of a 4-5' drop, landing in a nice fluffy cushion of snow.

The approach.

From Saddleback

The launch

From Saddleback

The aftermath.

From Saddleback

Today (Monday) we decided to stay home to decompress. It was a good move because as a result, Marcy, B and I got to go for another snowshoe this morning and then I was able to sneak in a sweet 3:15 and 55 miles on the road thanks to a generous wife. My tired legs thank you Marcy.

What a difference...

...a couple of days make. Actually, it was more like 10 hours. Tuesday morning's nightmare commute was followed by a sweet ride home after work. Despite temps in the mid fourties, the snowmobile trails stayed firm and rideable leading to some very fun commuting.

For this morning's commute, I opted to ride the road bike so that I could work in some specific Friel perscribed workouts. I've found they can be done on the mountain bike but its usually much easier to do on the road. As usual I had the early morning dead leg thing going but with a couple of quick high cadence spin-ups I was able to wake up the sticks and launch into a 30 minute tempo/seated hill climb workout. I'll definitely have to remember those quick sprints for the next time the gams don't want to work. Tonight should be a beautiful ride home with temps hovering near 40. Man, I love March riding

No love

Yowser, what a kick in the nutsack today’s commute in was. Last week was the rest week between phases base 2 & 3 so I expected to come into today with happy legs just raring to go. Boy was I wrong. I had decided to give the trails a try this morning since the snowmobiles have had ample opportunity to pack things down so I mounted up the Dos and it was clear in the first 10 minutes of road slogging that it wasn’t going to be a good one. I couldn’t get my heart rate up easily and when I did, I couldn’t maintain it. I wanted to bail on riding the trails and just spin in on the road but the prospect of doing the entire thirteen miles on the fat 2.3’s seemed even worse than anything I would run into on the trails. A half hour in I hit the start of the Schmid Preserve trails and thankfully it had seen at least a few snowmobiles leaving a nice, packed and grippy surface. For a moment my mojo came back on the first quick downhill but quickly left me on the first climb. Of course, by then I was (in poker terms) pot committed so I soldiered on. After cresting the hill, I was once again feeling ok so I began to think about hitting up some of the single track sections. One little voice in my head urged me to stick to the well traveled snowmobile trails while another (somewhat less intelligent) voice argued that the single track has probably been used enough to make riding possible. Turns out I should have listened to the first voice because not only was the single track not ride able but it was pretty much un-walkable too because of the crusty snow. If it wasn’t for the toe spikes in my shoes I’d probably still be in the woods nursing a broken leg. Finally after about 20 minutes of hoofing it at an astounding 2-3mph I finally got back to the snowmobile trails (man how I love snowmobiles). From there it was a quick scoot out to the road and a few miles to the office. Stick a fork in me, I was done. I was so tired and defeated that I didn’t even have the energy to take a 30 second shower that the hot water at the office allows. Instead opting to simply wash up and throw on some deodorant. Funny, nobody seems to be sitting near me today.

El Mariachi and Butt-Tunes

I was perusing the Bikeman website this A.M. and noticed they have the El Mariachi complete bike up on their homepage. Damn, what a deal! For under 1600 clams you get a very nicely spec'd 1x9 bike with an easy conversion to single speed. If I were going to do the single speed 29'er thing this year, that would be the way that I'd go (but I'm not Marcy, seriously). That's easily cheaper than you could do the same build for from scratch. Wheels and frame alone would run you over a grand. As usual, Salsa's paint job is pretty sweet too but from the looks of it, they stayed a bit more conservative than usual avoiding all of the pin stripping. Its not for me this year but one of you lucky guys can be rolling large this year.

Order up your super sweet steel (is real) El Mariachi today.

I just got this from RoadBikeRider.com

"---Pearl Izumi has just introduced bike shorts that are Bluetooth compatible and have an integrated Mp3 player with 16 hours of storage. The Vertex MP3 Bib Short sells for $500, and if you can afford that you can probably afford the hospital bill. Just think -- drivers will no longer be the only people on the road distracted by a cell phone in one ear and music in the other."

Holy shit! What the hell is Pearl Izumi thinking? Bluetooth and mp3 shorts!?! I could understand a jersey having those capabilities (safety issues aside) but shorts just don't make sense to me. It seems like that is the last place you want extra wires, batteries etc. Unless, of course, you talk out of your ass (as many blowhard riders do) in which case, that is the perfect location.

Recovery?

This week marks rest week number two for the season. It has come at a somewhat good time. B is super sick right now and Marcy and I find ourselves with just enough energy to get through the days let alone getting our workouts in. Since this is a rest week for me that means I've been forced to cut the workout hours back drastically which is good but sleep has been less than optimal, which is bad. Oh well, she's on the meds now so I suspect that things will turn around soon and by the end of the week I can get back to my scheduled routine.

Nostalgia

Andy posted a sweet video of some ice riding over at his blog. Check it out. When I worked in Camden, we did lots of winter rides like that (minus the hucking that is). We had a weekly group ride that went out after work. We'd ride and freeze for a couple of hours and then do it again the next week. It needed to be well below zero for us to bail. Good times. If there is one thing that I miss about working in Camden is the good riding and more importantly, the good riding buddies. Where I'm at now, I have a much shorter commute and a better work environment which is cool but I sure do miss those sweet trails and the killer hard road group rides. Can anyone say sprint intervals? I think for this year, Marcy and I have figured out how to get some of that back. I'm going to turn Tuesday's into my loooooong saddle days. I'll leave work at normal-ish time, drive home, hop on the road bike, ride the 30 miles to Camden to hit the group ride. I'll then bleed from the eyes for two hours and then do the 30 mile ride home. Should turn into a killer day in the saddle getting in both some serious endurance miles as well as some anaerobic work. Pretty sweet. Thankfully, if I overextend myself I can always catch a ride back with MadMike (who only lives a few miles from me) after the group ride. Sweetness, now if only I could figure out a similar routine to get over there to ride the mountain bike but 30 miles on pavement on fat knobbies aint gonna happen.

Shhhhh!

Don't tell anyone but I have diaper cream on my ass this morning. They say necessity is the mother of invention and all I can say is that I have one mother of a saddle sore on my left cheek (so big its creating its own gravitational field) that needed attention stat. I quickly scanned my mental roladex for something to use to treat it and nothing came to mind so when I spied a tube of diaper cream on the bathroom counter I gave 'er a go. I figure if it can head B's red, chapped bottom it might do the same for me. Thankfully there wasn't a tube of Vagasil on the counter.

Also, I've been thinking a bit more about my upcoming wheel build and I'm seriously considering giving the Stan's Flow or Arch a go. According to what I'm reading online on MTBR they are a very good rim and they, of course, mount up tubeless really well and actually require a tire lever to mount the tire and for anyone who owns a 29'er can attest to, you never typically have to use a tire lever. This sounds like a good thing until you're in a rush trying to get the tire back on after a tube change and the tire keeps falling off the other side of the rim. Freaking frustrating. Not to mention a tight fit is really necessary for a good tubeless conversion. Who knows what I'll end up doing but with Jason stealing my original build of Hope P2 hubs and Bonty Mustang rims I figure I might as well give it a bit more thought.

We're moving!

If you want to relocate to a new cycling centered community in Greenville SC check out this link. Good ole Big George is one of the ringleaders. At only $500,000-1.2 mil per house site, my only worry is what we'll do with all of the extra cash we'll have laying around after we sell our 1100 sf ranch.

A new low

Weight that is, not photo-op. No pics of me with a finger up my butt. Maybe tomorrow but today's news is that I've dropped below 190 lbs for the first time in about 2 years. Basically since Brynna was born. Coincidence? I think not. Since starting my 2007 training year at the beginning of January 7+ pounds have melted away. Yippee! It looks like my goal weight of 185 by the beginning of the season is attainable. I know that 185 is still pretty heavy bike racer wise but since I'm 6'-3" its not that shabby plus in high school I hovered between 180-185 and I was one skinny mo-fo and I don't want to look like that again. I hoping to keep the pecs around for the ladies so a couple of extra pounds are ok.

I wonder if one of the reasons for the weight coming off is that somehow, without trying, I've basically eliminated red meat from my diet. I'm not sure how or when it happened but I can't remember the last time I had a steak or hamburger. Weird. I'm sure upping my training hours drastically is doing most of the work but eliminating fatty red meat has got to help. Of course, when grilling weather returns this spring I'm sure I'll be grilling up some slabs of cow flesh every chance I get. There is nothing like a rare sirloin grilling tip. Yum.

Also, I'm happy to announce that Marcy and I have finally gotten with the times and gotten an I-pod and we're trying to figure out what to name it and are looking for clever ideas. Jason already has Ipodious sewn up so thats out. Any ideas? FYI, we got the Nano 2gig.


Marcy says that my winter cycling cap makes me look like a pin head. What do you think?

Lastly, here is a pic of mans best friend trying to save me from having fun sledding with the fam. Thanks Chance, you're the best.

Ti carver

I held a prototype of the sweet little bad boy while at Bikeman over the weekend. A very sweet ti 96'er frame. Nice finish, nice welds. Maybe by the time they become available I'll have the fundage to build one up as a single (wink, wink, nudge, nudge).

Ice naps

When, oh, when will Nokian come out with a REAL 29’er studded tire? For the past few winters, I’ve been rolling exclusively on their Extreme 294 and those suckers hook up extremely well even on the sketchiest of ice. This year, being on a 29’er has been a bit frustrating. Friday I snuck out at lunch for a 2 hr mountain bike ride and spent a great deal of my time trying to avoid falling on my face and on more than a few occasions taking some serious ice naps (once while going 20+/- downhill, ouch)! When Nokian comes out with a full width (now they only have cyclocross size 29’er studded tires) studded tire, I’ll be all the freak over it.


I saw the other day about some dude who turned his igniters into some pretty sweet studded tires but if you've ever tried to stud a tire, you know why I don't want to do it. Its super time comsuming, no cheaper than buying a tire and you end up with tires that are super sketchy if you have to cover any pavement. No thanks, I'll wait for Nokian.

Flandis

Stolen from RoadBikeRider.com

Today in Paris and somewhere in the U.S. on May 14 are two key dates in Floyd Landis's life. The French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) is moving ahead with its hearing on Landis today. A decision by the nine-member panel could mean a ban from racing on French soil (i.e., in the Tour de France) for as long as two years. Or the hearing might determine that Landis is innocent, that he did not use a banned substance, testosterone, while winning the 2006 Tour. The agency could also postpone its ruling, which is what Landis's lawyers are requesting. Then in mid May, Landis will at long last have his appeal heard by a three-member arbitration panel in the U.S. This is the big one. If his legal team fails to convince the panel that his testosterone irregularities in the 17th stage were due to sloppy procedures by the French national doping lab, Landis stands to lose his Tour title and all prize money. He would be banned from sanctioned competition for two years and ProTour team membership for four years. Those penalties could mean that Landis, 31, is finished in pro racing. He underscored the likelihood in December when he said, "If I'm banned for four years and stripped of my title and prize-money, I'll never race again. My desire for it would have been obliterated." AFLD president Phillipe Bourdry told the Associated Press that Landis can be assured of a fair hearing today even though the rider won't attend. "It's not because someone is positive that he must be automatically suspended," said Bourdry. "The rights of the defense are very important." Landis's lawyers have asked the AFLD to delay its ruling until a decision has been reached in the U.S. The May hearing apparently will be open to the public at Floyd's request. He's said he wants his defense understood by everyone. His legal team is still trying to obtain lab reports on his other urine samples at the Tour, all of which showed no illegal drugs in his system and especially not the synthetic testosterone he was found positive for after stage 17. Landis claims that test was flawed for various reasons. Arnie Baker, M.D., the RBR eBook author who has coached and advised Landis for years, is leading a group of medical experts that contends it has found flaws in the French doping lab's procedures. "The results are not reliable," said Baker. "The whole document is riddled with errors. The sample was clearly contaminated and mislabeled. I'm not sure whose urine I'm looking at here. "This whole thing is so full of errors I don't know what to think except I can't call it a positive test," Baker added. "I don't think the [U.S. Anti-doping Agency] should be looking at sanctions. I think [the World Anti-Doping Agency] should be looking to improve practices." There will be no USADA reaction to any defense charges until the May hearing, said the agency's general counsel, Travis Tygartfrom. "Unfortunately, as a case gets played out in the media, people will only ever see one side of that story," he said in November. "Our rules don't allow us to comment." However, if the May hearing is indeed public, everyone will get the chance to observe the arguments firsthand. Landis is thought to be the only U.S. athlete ever to request that his doping trial be aired in the sunshine. Depending on the arbitration panel's verdict, either Landis or the USADA could appeal the result to the Court of Arbitration for Sport. Its decision would be final. ______________________________________ Tour de Finance Floyd Landis spoke at his second fundraiser last night, this one in Brooklyn. About 200 people paid $35 apiece to hear him, according to the New York Times. The money is earmarked for Landis's legal defense, which is said to have cost him about $500,000 so far. Landis told the supportive crowd that "in the 2006 Tour de France, and for that matter the rest of my career, I never used performance-enhancing substances." His talk was preceded by a PowerPoint presentation from Dr. Arnie Baker that detailed Landis's defense. "There are so many mistakes," Baker said. "If there should be sanctions, it should be on the lab." The crowd cheered loudly at the end of Baker's presentation, according to the Times, and gave Landis a standing ovation.

Personally, I hope he's innocent but we'll see.

The world is at my feet.

Recently, I've been feeling bad about myself because of the dismal number of visitors I get to this blog. It seems like the traffic has really dropped off since the end of the riding season. Makes sense really, I would expect for people to pick up the pace again as spring approaches. It turns out though that my traffic is almost at the same level as it was last September which was my best month over the summer. Huh, interesting. Of course we're still talking about really dismal numbers but at least I know that despite my lack of time or energy to blog, there are still a few readers who stick with me no matter how bad the content is. My guess is that they come back hoping for some more posts like the one with me sitting on the can or pissing in the woods. Of course, with the bar set so low, I can do nothing but improve!

Yes really, I give!

Yikes! Tad bit nipply out there these days. I actually bailed on my commute yesterday because it was too damn cold in the morning. I used the "I didn't sleep well" excuse but I know for a fact that if it had been 20deg instead of 2 I would have been hauling my carcass in on the road rocket. I guess there is a limit to how tough I'll pretend to be. Instead of the ride, I had a kick ass jog and cyclocore workout before work that left my feeling a little bit wobbly kneed. This time of year I should really be spending more of my time on that type of stuff anyway and gradually work that bike hours up. My saddle sore (who I think I'll name Mr. Pussington) thanks me.

One good thing about all of the cold-ass weather is that when it warms up even moderately it feels like a frickin heat wave. Last Wednesday, when I rode home, it was 19 degs and I couldn't believe how nice it was. Lame.

Ok, I give!

Remember a month or so ago when I was complaining about how warm the temps were and the fact that it made it difficult to ride in the woods because of all of the mud. Well, times have changed and now it too freakin cold out. I haven't had a ride in the last two weeks that I didn't end it with frozen toes and/or fingers. This morning it was a balmy 6 deg and the digits just weren't having it. What I wouldn't give for temps to be up in the 20's. That would be glorious.

P.S.- I've got my first saddle sore of the year festering down in stank town right now. All of this seated climbing is really starting to rub me the wrong way if you know what I mean. Thankfully, base 2 has now started and the keister will be allowed to leave the saddle on occasion.

Yikes!

All I can say is "Damn!"

Fruit of my loins

Here is a pic of B perfecting her cornering skills while rocking the Twin Six T. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree apparently.

Good GAWD!

Holy smokes was it freakin cold for the ride in this morning. At 4:30, when I went for a jog with the pooch, it felt cold but nothing out of the ordinary. When I climbed aboard the road rocket at 5:15 though things were a bit different. I could immediately tell that it was a tad bit nippier than usual. My face froze on the short down hills and my fingers were getting a bit cold within the first few minutes. A mile in, the bank clock confirmed what I had suspected. 7 degrees. My official coldest commute this year. Shortly afterwards I was forced to pull over and put on the mitten shells that I now carry for emergencies thanks to THIS POST. Thankfully I had them because my mitts were nice and toasty the rest of the ride in. It looks like I'll need to design some mitts for the poor Garmin though. The extreme cold sapped its battery in about a 1/2 hour. Bummer, I guess when its really cold it'll be living in my coat pocket. Poor little guy.

Here is a tip for everyone who gets tired of flat tires on their road bikes or worries about dying of hypothermia while changing a flat this time of year. I found that if you remove the core of your road tube (assuming you have the type with a removeable core) you can shoot a bit of Stans in there. Put the core back in, air up, giver a couple of spins and you should be flat free for a while. I discovered this the other day when I got yet another slow leak in my front tire from all of the road grit out there these days. Hopefully the Stans will rid me of those for a while. I know a tire change this morning would not have been good.

Safe to cross?

 

you be the judge.

lonely track

 

For Tizzom's eyes only

This one goes out to Tizzom. Here is the full Damariscotta Route 66 loop. I was able to get out and ride the whole thing on Sunday. Its now 100% rideable (very tough at times but rideable) and will only get better as we get more snow so that the snowmobiles will get their butts out there and pack it all down. Click on the LINK to go to the Motion Based page for the gps info.



Enough of that. Here's an off the wall question. Exactly how gay is it to have your legs waxed? My thinking is that since a good portion of us shave our legs already it can't be that much of a leap to give the gams the ole wax-er-oo. Just wondering because shaving sucks monkey nuts and waxing, while being more painful, at least doesn't have to be done as often. Sound off!

You can thank my buddy Kevin for this

I'm famous!

For the last couple of weeks I've been sending e-mails back and forth to a guy who did the Metric Mash (LINK 1, LINK 2, LINK 3 he's the dude carrying his bike across the log in link 3) this past summer. Apparently he's writing a story for a local newspaper to be published sometime this winter/spring. He's using my completely amateur photos for the story and has indicated that he may actually use the pic of me taking a piss. Of course he checked with me to be sure it was ok to use the pic just in case I was bashful. So, of course, I sent him a link to the pic of me sitting on the toilet and asked "Does this look like a person who is bashful?" Hopefully when it prints I'll be able to get a copy to share.

crooked cogs

I just got done listening to a bunch of pod-casts from CrookedCog.com while watching the seconds tick by on this Friday afternoon. I've been a subscriber to the podcast for a while now but haven't checked it in months. The last one that I listened to was an interview with Mike Riemer from Salsa Cycles. Pretty interesting interview and cool to hear about some of the history of Salsa. Some good stuff. It was also interesting because it was released in September of last year and Mike obviously wanted to talk about the unveiling of the mamasita but was not at liberty to do so.

Good Friday afternoon stuff.

You can check out their podcasts HERE. Unfortunately though, it appears the Mike Riemer interview is no longer on the site since its so old. If I wasn't such a technoweenie I could probably find it but I'll leave that up to you suckers. Or else is there some way for me to make my I-Tunes copy available?

new wheels

Jason having let the cat out of the bag about his new WTB wheels for this coming season and its got me thinking about my wheel set-up for this coming season. The Delgado Disc 29'er rims I have on my current set have been a bit disappointing to say the least. Initially I thought they only sucked because I built the wheels myself but after taco'ing my first front wheel and having a professional build the second and then quicking f'ing it up, I've decided to go a different route this season. I'll keep the current set-up as my training wheels and race back-ups until the rims finally give up the ghost for good and I'll use the new set for racing.

I shot a couple of e-mails back and forth to Big Gay Al over at Bikeman.com the other day and we came up with a pretty good set-up:

Bontrager Mustang 29'er rim (good price, reasonable weight and tubeless compatible)

Butted spokes and alloy nips (not much to say here)

DT 240 hubs (light, reliable and not super duper expensive)

At the time it seemed like a good set up but after a bit more research I think I'm going to go with Hope P2 hubs again this year. They are only slightly heavier than the DT's but at a full $200 bucks cheaper than the 240's I think I can live with a few more grams.

I'm pretty psyched to have the potential for running my tires tubeless this year as well. I could never get the salsa rims to run tubeless because the rims were so wide that standard rim strips just didn't cut it. With a bit of work I probably could have jerry rigged something but I'm not into that type of thing typically, especially when I'm racing. The last thing you want to have happen at a critical point in a race is for some dumb-ass work around that you figure out fail on you. Or even worse, worry constantly about the jerry rigged component and therefore never race full on. Anyway, tubeless good, tubes not so good.

Of course, I'll have to scrape up some jing to pay for them first though.

Me and my Garmin

Its a match made in heaven.

It's fre-fre-freezing!

Last night I did one of my coldest commutes ever. Not really absolute temperature wise because I think I've done a commute in colder weather but because I was out for so long in the cold, I was by far the coldest I think I've ever been on a bike. On Monday it snowed a bit (about 3 inches) before turning to freezing rain. Because of this, I decided it wouldn't be wise to ride the road bike home (wisely) and would instead use the Dos and hit up some of the trails on the way to stay off of the slick roads as much as possible. Mission accomplished in one respect. I have now officially figured out how connect the trails behind the office to the Zak preserve trails then it is just a couple miles of road hoffage and I'm into the Schmid Preserve. From there its about 6 miles of roadage. A bit more road than I'd like on a mountain bike but beggers can't be choosers. Anyway, back on topic. Yesterday, because it was so cold (hovering around 15 degrees) I decided to take out a bunch of the trails and do the most direct route traile-wise home. I figured this would take my typical 45 minute road commute and turn it into about 1:15 or so. Unfortunately for me, the new snow with the crusty top turned out to be very difficult to ride in. Sort of like plowing through 6" of sand. Not very pleasant. To top it off, I had forgotten my good light and was relying on my back-up which hadn't been charged in a while so I had no idea of its run time. With that in mind, I rode as far as possible sans light and managed to get as far as the Schmid Preserve before turning on the light for the first time a good 20 mins later than I should have. Once into the preserve I really started to wonder about my decision to ride home. It was definitely too dangerous to stick to the roads all of the way home because my short stint on route 27 was downright scary with an icy breakdown lane and constant traffic. The trial were my safest route but with a light with questionable run time and the cold temps I started to get mildly concerned. To be safe I decided to check my cell phone to be sure I had service. I had a brief moment of concern when I realized my phone was no longer in my jersey pocket but thankfully had fallen out and been caught by the elastic band on my jacket. Phew! Unfortunately though, the cold seemed to have zapped most of the life out of the battery and it was down to zero battery bars showing. Damn, this was turning into one of those stupid stories about some moron who wanders off into the woods in the middle of the winter with nothing but tennis shoes and a windbreaker only to be found in the spring frozen solid. Of course, I was already committed to the ride now so the only thing to do was soldier on. Within about 20 mins I was out of the preserve and back into civilization again and feeling ok and almost enjoying the ride again.

At this point, I shot a quick call to Marcy so that she would know that I was in fact still alive and would be home soon. At the 2 hr mark I pulled into the garage but my hands were so freakin cold that I was initially unable to turn of my flasher lights. 20 minutes, a hot shower and a nice meal (thanks Marcy!) later I was feeling all of my extremeties again. Yippee!

Overall, it was sort of a ridulous ride but looking back at it now it was sort of fun. I don't want to repeat it though.

On another note, below you'll find a Google Earth image of most of the trials located behind my office. There are still a few to map out but its looking pretty nice so far. It has the makings of some really nice lunch rides.

I'm trying to figure out how to allow others to actually go to Google Earth and zoom in and out of this image but no luck so far.

Edit:

Oops, I got in trouble (rightfully so) by wifey for being unprepared for a solo mountain bike ride in the winter so I would like to amend the previous post to say that I was well prepared for the cold temps and had given consideration to what I would do if something unfortunate had happened. I would also like to remind her that my life insurance policy is in affect and she stands to profit handsomely if I ever do kick it while out for a ride. :)

New Bikeman clothing line

Brynna modeling the new fashionable line of evening dresses offered by our friends at Bikeman.com

Rolling with it

If there is one thing that I've discovered is that with a baby at home you definitely need to be willing to change your riding plans at the drop of a hat and roll with it. This past week has been both good and bad. Brynna hasn't been sleeping well (and therfore we haven't either) for a few days and yesterday it became clear why when she vomitted twice while at daycare. Being the excellent dad that I am (father of the year material if you ask me) I took her home and let her nap on me for close to three hours while I passed the time watching last seasons final episodes of 24 and channel surfing. By going home with B my planned lunchtime ride was aborted but I made up for it by doing some CycloCore abs work and some weight training followed by 1.5 hrs on the trainer down in the house of stank so overall it turned out to be a pretty good day training wise.

Anyway, I'm learning how to deal with these minor setbacks and build on them. As of right now, I'm actually still on track to meet the weekly goals that Mr. Friel has set for me and the body is feeling pretty good. Sort of that "I just did a hard workout but feeling fine" kind of thing. I love that feeling.

Season planning

Last night I was finally able to sit down and block out my training plan for the upcoming season. This is the first time that I have actually tried to plan a season with base, build and peak periods so its all a bit overwhelming for me right now but I'm sure I'm making much more out of it than need be. I've still got some races up in the air at this point but things are getting a bit clearer at least. Some of these include the Wilderness 101, Shenandoah 100 and the Vermont 50. Of course there will also be some Maine EFTA and NECS series races thrown in as well as schedule permits.

One thing that I'm really worried about is annual hours. For my race categoy and ambitions, Friel suggests an annual hour total of between 500 & 800 hours. Even at the low end of 500 hours spread out over the year that comes out to 10 hours a week. There is no freakin way in hell I can squeeze that kind of time in. Sure, some weeks I'm able to squeeze out 10-15 hrs but those are usually by luck and can't be counted on a regular basis. My guess is that a 400 hr schedule would more easily fit into my lifestyle so I've got some thinking to do. Whatever happens hours wise though, I'm sure just thinking about all of this now will help me focus to achieve my goals. For example, even though I was initially unmotivated to work out last night, the thought of getting in 12 hours this week motivated me to do a weight workout and to get up early this morning to fit in a jog and a Cyclo Core workout. Yay for me!

Done!

As you can see, the new template is finally up and I have a shiny new header thanks to my man Jason. Thanks also to my bro Rus who helped me with the html code because, lets face it, I'm sort of like a monkey with a stick when it comes to writing code. I still have a bit of tweaking to do on the colors but overall its looking pretty good.

Yesterday I snuck out for a lunchtime spin on the Dos and tried to hit up all of the trails that are located behind my office. I think I managed to hit (and map) 2/3 of what is there which is cool but more importantly, I think I figured out how to connect it to the Zak Preserve trails which means that if I want to take an extended lunch I can hit up about 10 miles of single and double track. Pretty sweet if you ask me.

Here's a LINK to the motion based map.

The Nelson Naked Crit

Brynna is currently in training for her first official naked crit.

She got the trike from her Grammie and Grampa Lucas for Christmas and without fail, if she's getting some naked time around the house, she immediately heads for the trike. Not sure whats going on in that little head of hers but she's not happy until we've given her a few laps around the house in the buff.

construction site

As you'll notice, we're working on a new header for the blog. You'll also notice that we haven't quite got the bugs worked out yet. Please bear with us during this messy process.

Thank you.

The management.

ps. You can find Jason's fine header in un-distorted form at the bottom of the page.

The commute

Finally managed to get a commute into work again today. I think its been about 2-3 weeks since I've been able to because of scheduling conflicts and such. Unfortunately, I felt like total dog doody the whole time but it was still nice to be out. If you're really bored, you can check out the gps map info at motionbased.com from the ride. The best way to view it is in the hybrid (map and satellite images). If the temps ever cool off again, I'll do the commute on the Dos Niner so that I can map out the trails on the way in. One of these days but right now, the woods are in a perpetual mud season. F'in global warming. Some people dig the warmer temps but this 40 degree bull just doesn't cut it. Lots of rain and not warm temps to dry things out leads to no mountain biking. Plus, riding in the snow and ice is damn cool.

Speaking of which, Saturday saw me on an interesting road ride. The plan was to ride to Marcy's mother's place to visit with her brother who was up from S.C. for the week. About 30mins into the ride it started to snow like a mofo. Not a heavy snow but a really small particle (sort of sand like) snow which quickly made the roads very slick. Slick enough that I was afraid to use the brakes for fear of my 23c road tires slipping and sending me to the pavement. With much care, I was able to make it about 24 miles before Marcy mercilously caught up to me and swept me up in the rolling toaster on her way up. Thank god because it was getting mighty scary having to worry about my ass getting leveled by 2 tons of steel.


This pic is from about 5 minutes into the snow while there was still "some" traction. After this show, I was too worried about dying to bother taking any more.

From Ride to Party

From new

Phew, the holidays are now officially over and hopefully with it, the binging on food and the mass exodus of cash from the bank account. Overall, we fared pretty well on both accounts, a couple of slips here and there but considering the temptations of the holiday season things could have been worse. One good thing for me that comes out of the holiday season is that I usually end up with a bunch of new bike schwag. With the combo of my b-day (being a week before x-mas) and Christmas itself, the bike loot piles high. This year the list includes the Garmin Edge I mentioned before, Joe Friel’s Mountain Bikers Training Bible, two new Panaracer Rampage tires, an 06 Tour DVD, a Team Bikeman fleece cycling cap, some SWIX gloves and a sweet ass Castelli retro wool cycling jersey. Not bad I’d say. Thankfully, everybody knows about my cycling problems and help me by giving me another fix.

I plan on using two of the gifts (the Edge and Friel’s book) to seriously help me out next season. I’m already 1/3 of the way through the Friel book and I know that it will help me lay out a plan for next season. Having had no real structure to my training for the last few seasons (ok, never), I don’t expect to develop a really in-depth program but one with just enough structure to help me take a step forward this coming season. With the book helping me to plan my workouts and the Edge’s ability to program in specific workouts, I hope to really kick it up a notch this year. I’m excited already.