distractions

Despite distractions the morning until coffee break right now has been kick ass productive.  At one point (well more than that) I had the TA race in one screen and the Paris-Nice in the other, and cranking through emails and scheduling and phone.

A good day.  Crazy finishes, and Fabian is f'n SMOOOTH on the TT bike.

Turn your webber kettle grill into a Pizza Oven? Say it ain't so! Brilliant. So cool. That would make summer pizza cooking much more pleasant inside the house.  I suppose I could go with the ErikV pizza screen method but this Kettle Pizza thing looks spectacular.  Watching the video but it looks a bit complicated, or the guy isn't as practiced as he could be.  Pretty slick esp if you don't have space to build your own backyard pizza oven.

Normally I'm drooling over the NAHBS pictures and galleries.  This year? I read Dave's blog about it.  And man did he ruin the magic.  Sure he might have a motive to promote his old brand, but his point, biased or not, still stands. Making a bike aesthetically pleasing or unique or cool isn't the challenge, it is making it both all that and still a perfectly riding bike.

So now I see a bike and I'm thinking, okay, that looks really cool, but how does it ride? The Firefly demystifying the ISP also kind of tweaked how I view those on non-carbon bikes.  On a carbon bike, yeah, no big deal, sticking a round tube down a plastic bike doesn't make that much sense.  On round tube bikes the Seatpost actually is pretty fucking functional.  It is pretty obvious, but not something I had thought about.  Adding more material where the seat post would have been on an ISP bike kind of seems to defeat the purpose of making it lighter/stronger/whatever.  And then on a bike my size? no way it will fit in a box/crate/shipping.  Maybe I mentioned this earlier.

I'm forgetting stuff.

no surprise.

some powerful potential in this film:

The opening deeply resonates with me. Except I don't surf. I ride a bike. And probably more than 300 days of the year I throw my leg over the saddle. Year in, year out.

It defines me in a very unique way. Call me a genetics appologist if you want, doesn't change the fact that I am unique, even in the world of the niche sport. Not alone, no certainly not the only one like me, and that's comforting to know others do get my point of view. Those who both compete in races and use the bicycle as a primary form of daily personal transportation.

I like that I'm not alone. Even when it feels like it some times.

This post is all over the map, just be lucky I didn't add the formula race car in the snow movie here (posted it over on G+ fwiw).

Rode in on the Blue with the impact attenuator hooked up.  Certainly pedals more effortlessly than the Croll, the small ring is a nice change of pace for the few hills compared to the Croll's 46t only up front.  over dressed meant I just took it slow, as planned.  Have to head to the kids school to see a short play that my youngest really wants me to see (means a lot to her) so I'll head over, then head back and then plan out a modified early sunset Smack Down route.  We're going to change it up a bit head east and hit Hillside and Rocky Hill.  "Sprint" points at the top of the hills to keep it with Mark's theme.  The ride will finish up with a flat out high speed sprint for the state line by the reservoir there on 152.  No, we won't take West so as to make sure we have a decent lead out.  A nice short 20-25 mile figure 8 loop.  Planning on a 5pm departure from the old PVC meeting point at the Waterman Grill.  Tempo ride for a mile or two to get through the heavier traffic'd areas, then boom, all hell breaks loose.  Or that's the plan.  We'll see what happens.

Okay now someone with a couple more races under their belt bitching about entry fees...  Tilford is always entertaining. 

do good, be well, and as always,

Heddwch™
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