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.