long breaks

are good...

in a way...

Others, they just make more work when ya come back...

I missed what seemed to be about 90% of the comments about the BRC race. I had contemplated buggin the officials regarding where i was on the list, i didn't. They always seem pretty busy and stressed, esp when another race is going on. I don't need the results to be there to know how i did. Moving on from that i rode my bike once between packing it up there in Lowell and beginning to warm up at Sterling. Once. To the post office and back on Wed. Maybe 2 miles. But it was on the cross bike and it was just one of those fun rides that is well, ya know, one of those rides that makes ya realize how much ya like your bike.

I'm not even 1/2 through the emails. At least there aren't any voice mails to deal with.

So cutting to the chase, Sterling was fun. The official's pronouncement of a "parade" lap meant different things to different people it seemed. Some of us at the start sort of assumed a neutralized parade around for a lap before taking off. Others just nuked it from the whistle and did well for themselves. I was the former. For all of about 5 seconds. Then i got boxed in on the inside as people were blowing through on the outside and wound up back where i was lined up on the grid after one lap. At the back. First couple laps felt pretty good. Mr Official Jerry was the former and being so tiny and wearing the kick ass black Sachs kit he magically moved up about 30 spots in the first "parade" lap. But he was just up ahead, w/in reach until someone came to a stop in front of me as i was riding up the little up and down thing on the hill. OOPS. I more or less seemed to block the course with the behemoth of a bike before i could wrangle it around pointed in the right direction. And for a while i was holding water. IE not going backwards relative to a few people. Then. Well then i couldn't down shift to the little ring. Seems washing the bike the day before in cool weather and not blasting the STI mechanism and the cables/housing with WD40 afterwards was a bad idea. The weather wasn't terribly warm and the left shifter froze up. Well the right one did to. Wouldn't let me drop down past the 18ish at all. Hell for a while it wouldn't drop down at all. So i really turned the diesel power on. And I know all the sayings, and have read, heard, about how much over gearing can really suck the juice out of you. Well. Here was my chance to empirically find out if not spinning up a hill was slower. Well. Any reasonably intelligent person would recognize. Yes. It is a bit slower. Unless ya are unstoppable. I'm definitely stoppable. The saving grace was finding the course designer (great course, i liked the changes) slipping backwards. I caught and passed him with a few to go. And although i wanted to grab matt m's wheel as he went flying past, it was the presence of Tom back there. His gaining on me in a few sections that i was sucking more than i should have been, was enough to get me out of the saddle digging in to the 49 tooth chainring. Yeah. My single ring up front was a 49 for most of the race! Whooo hooo. Legs hurt after the race. But i didn't get lapped by the freakishly strong field of uber fast dudes. I had fun. I saw lots of great folks. That 1/2/3 masters field is wicked damn tough. Once i nail down my starts again (different level of intensity starting in the back of an almost PRO field vs starting on the front of the 3/4 masters races), once i nail them down again things should be looking much much better.

Did a bit of work on the P-mount yesterday. Ditched the well worn 50t for a 40t. Took off the amazingly worn old old Sedis-Sport chain, put a new one on. single ring with an old mangled ultegra front der. Now here's what i don't understand. People are bolting on this and that and another thing to keep their silly single ring rigs running... Why not just put a front der on there? They don't weight a whole hell uvalot, certainly not more than a 3rd eye or a pair of chain guards... but hey, it might look goofy. I dunno. So. I didn't change the cassette. DOH. Well not really it was by design. I didn't have an 8speed one laying around and i knew from the last time i cleaned it that the 12-13-14 were in good shape and the 25 was actually in pretty good shape. So, well. I got a 4 speed. Till i get a new cassette on there. Drivetrain actually is smooth, wicked less friction. An amazing amount less. Fun. And it even stopped raining by the time we were ready to go. And it held off raining even as i had to change yet another flat tire on the trailer. Bit of glass this time. And fortunately we were at home. Easy. Just time consuming. The ride in was nice, and again a bit warm. Granted i did put knee warmers on and the team Warsaw jacket on over my ssjersey. Had to have it unzipped most of the time.

Who knows if i'll ever catch up with the web log/internet world from last week. But i got a feeling i wasn't the only one on vacation. Time to fire up the coffee, and overthink the options of either cleaning or replacing the cables on the Cross bike.

peace,
G