Ooph

Legs were toast this morning. My energy level is dragging a bit. Starting the 3rd day of double workouts is tough, esp. when the day before the doubles start you do a Cross race. The roads are covered in glass and sand, very noisy, hard to hear if you have picked something up (that rhythmic tick). And my tires are old enough to have a handful of gashes. And I got a flat yesterday. Felt it kind of squishy just at the "downhill" and it was loosing air as i was headed down the hill. Really fun to be going down hill towing heavy trailer as your rear wheel is going flat. Managed to stop and get it changed. Damn glass, second one in as many days. This time I slapped my second to last park glue-less patch on it. But. I knew as I was getting close to the house. I was loosing air. All the damn holes I seem to be getting are RIGHT along that big ass mold seam and well. The old glue-less patches don't patch so well. It was completely flat a few hours after i got home. Rode home with the rest of the gutter bunnies here at work. Great time. Nice to have a gaggle of lights, esp. when changing flats in the dark. One of the other guys got a flat too. We used the final glue-less patch on his tube. Yes I put in a new tube on Monday, no patch then. And I put a new tube in last night and added the failed glue-less patch tube to the pile of road tubes that I’ll patch up when i get a fresh glue patch kit. Run through and do them all at once. Over and done with. Nothing more frustrating than carrying a glue patch kit around only to find the glue all dried up when you need it most.

The Serfas tire on there (Seca) is pretty darn thin in the middle. This last piece of glass went through the "plastic" flat proof thing. So I grabbed a 28-35c tube with a valve that blew out around the rubber, and cut it open. Slid my 23-28 tube inside of it and installed that. It isn't a Mr. Tuffy, but I couldn't find my second one around and well, it'll be a nice bit of extra measure of time to hopefully allow me to pick the glass out before it works through the casing and the first layer of tube material. I picked out 4 chunks of glass out of the front tire last night. It at least has a real Mr. Tuffy in there.

Part of what is completely wearing me out is the lack of gear choices. 40x12,13, or 25. Now unloaded, those are great gears. But, loaded with a trailer, it's pretty tough, lots of force. And lately it is starting to skip under load in the 13. Yeah. I changed the chain, when I changed the chain ring (was 50, now 40). But the 25 cog and the 12 and 13 were not worn and i had the chain and ring laying around and it was a zero capital investment. Got to hit The HUB today. Time for more gears.

I'm sporting my favorite tan today. Makes me grin just thinking about it. A Belgian Tan. Not a cross reference. It is from back in the days before I knew about Cross, when winter rides in college in southern New England meant getting dirty legs. Pealing off the socks to reveal a pasty white foot and an almost black leg above the sock line. That was when I knew, who cared what the "roadies said" I'm wearing black socks on the bike. So my nice Belgian tan goes along with an incredibly dirty bike. My daughter said, as we were getting looking at the bike and trailer at day care before going in, "Daddy, you have to wash your bike. AND my buggy." Yes her buggy. And it is cross's fault. Me washing the bike way more often this fall than every before. She noticed. She thinks it is odd that I’m not washing the Paramount more often.

I might have been off on the style things. Solo says it makes me out to be a dumb hill billy. Maybe like my bro in his bike chains, it is a (un)conscious defense mechanism, putting up a front that is dissimilar to the inside. That said I have made an effort to clean this up. There are still a few fragments. But maybe focusing on my writing, spelling and sentence construction is a good goal for 2008. Goals are good. And that goal is both not out of reach, but not so easy that it will be unrewarding.

Battenkill 30+ is already full. Amazing. Our team has 5 guys in the 30+ race. Three big strong guys, one skinnywhity, and a hard core talented messenger. If nothing else. It will be a blast. That and I have been pretty serious about organizing an hour of intense cross on a regular basis. Maybe not once a week, but hopefully at least once a month.

There, that'll do it for now.
Heddwch,
G