Well I went back. The nice thing about this race is it serves a good yardstick to compare where i was fitness wise last year with this year.
Not much comparison.
The last two weeks the only riding I've done has been on the Tandem with the 40cm bars and the 170 cranks. Not only is it different in that the back wheel is way behind me and the handling is weird, but it is very biomechanically different. Reduces my leverage in all possible ways. #1 can't stand up, all power generating has to be done in a seated position. #2 lever points for the hands are closer together (less leverage even seated). #3 cranks are 10mm shorter, making for a 20mm smaller circle I'm pedaling through, and that's a lot. But still I managed to survive riding it. Esp fun when we added the trail-a-bike for the trip to pick up the youngest. Riding with my three girls was a blast.
But Friday was the last day on the tandem, at least planned. riding to school with the tandem will not work, weekends are going to be full of activities and my oldest has had enough of riding right behind me, she would much rather be on her own bike now.
The two weeks were up and it was Saturday, a gorgeous day. Wonderful morning and from there after everyone got up they headed to LL Bean for some school stuff and I set to work getting the old Klein ready to race. Seeing as my only rear wheel choice was the aero one I had just replaced 3 spokes and had less than full confidence to race on, or my trusty 32 GeWilli lacing special. So, I went with my trusty old rear wheel. And put the disc covers on it. They add weight but I have to say, the bike is easier to push at speeds over 25mph with the disc cover on. Just rolls faster and easier, even in a pack.
Once it was all put together it was time to start getting re-adapted to a more proper bike fit. Off the bat the bars felt wide, which is really weird, the Klein's bars are 2cm narrower than the CX bikes and usually feel narrow. And i was pedaling giant circles.
Headed down the bike path. Yes it was a gorgeous day and the path was busy, but i wasn't going fast, but i was spinning like a top. And it felt great. Light spinning down to Sowams road and I turned left and shifted up to the big ring and started some tempo. And it still felt pretty good. I had planned to do some sprints along Teddy Toeclips favorite sprint spot, the place where he taught Bill Yarbroudy how to sprint as a junior, Kent Road between New Meadow road and Sowams.
But before that a car passed and I decided that jumping up to their speed would be a good warm up. So I jumped up to how ever fast they were going, closed the distance and held it till I thought I would explode, then backed off. Once more before the left turn from NMR onto Kent and then I was gassed so I revised the plan and just sprinted up to speed every time a car passed.
Went left on Sowams again and for some reason the cars were going slower so the jump was easier and I was able to hold the 30+ pretty easily up till just before the Barneyville road turn when the car bailed to the right.
Three more sprints down NMR cooked me pretty well. My lungs were on fire. I hadn't had any super short all out efforts. The max efforts on the tandem were testing legs more than lungs.
On the way back up I had this mental image comparing my legs and lungs with as a gamer.
In away, after those sprints I had felt that my legs had leveled up but my lungs weren't quite ready to go to the next level. Not enough points yet.
After getting home, eating, chilling and whatever else happened that night (pool birthday party for my daughter's friend), and a lost tooth (it had been ready to come out for a while) we all crashed.
Then it started. The youngest was having bad dreams. All night. I got up a couple times around midnight. Once back to back. She was just sleeping, and the last time I woke her up, and she said she was fine and wanted a lullaby so i complied and then hopped back in bed. Next thing you know not 5 minutes later she's back at it.
Turns out she was dreaming about a monster coming into the house and taking the money the Tooth Fairy left for her. Awesome. Not the best night sleep pre-race.
But I managed to get enough.
Got up and made a Ted King pancake thing. Doused it in maple syrup and ate it. Pretty eggy (as my comment reflects over there). But hey, it was different. This morning was more normal, sauteed mushrooms, spicy pepper, 3 eggs scrambled, cheese, baby arugula, divided into two tortillas. That Ted King pancake thing did stick with me through the day. Very well actually.
Finished up, even put sunscreen on (i'm getting smaht as i get old) - Met up with Nathan T and we rode down to the race.
I guess that's another reason why I like this race. It is so close. about 15 miles from my house on the bike. Perfect warm up.
And The Coffee Depot is right on the way there. Stopped in for an Iced Coffee (had them put it in a 22oz in a waterbottle - don't want to incite the bloodlust of ryantkelly).
The ride down was interesting. It was a deserted morning in Barrington and there is a light where the path crosses the big road and it was deserted, and so instead of standing there and hitting the button and waiting for the light we just rolled through. Some dude in an scoobie mini-wagon with a kayak on top yelled at us "PUSH THE BUTTON AND WAIT FOR THE GREEN LIGHT!" He was pretty pissed. We both found it kind of odd. We had just barely come out in the road, he was in the other lane, we were waiting for him to clear (not another car in sight), and he yells at us.
Further down after we get into Warren a guy with his dog, yells at us again; "SLOW DOWN OR GO RIDE ON THE ROAD!!!" I can totally see this guys point. A team mate of ours likes to train on the path and terrorist the tourists and locals, but we were seriously riding very slowly. Maybe a mph faster than the older couple in street clothes riding just 20 yards in front of us on old hybrids. He was maybe even more pissed than the dude in the scoobie.
Totally weird. The rest of the ride in was pretty uneventful. Even Fall Reeev wasn't bad. But holy crap, Wilson is a bitch of a hill. But we got a decent warm up in because of it.
Signed up, grabbed some of the free powerbar samples, got pinned up, saw Steven Lehmann, talked about cross, met up with team mates, we probably had the second biggest number of riders in the field with 5 of us, Bikeworks (home team) had maybe 9? Paul was running his mouth on the mic and I didn't realize till it was over that I didn't hear him mention me once for a change, anonymity is kind of nice sometimes.
Last year I got spit out the back at the first Prime and rode the rest of the race alone. This year? There were more fit guys, fewer big dudes like me, and of course we had the McCormack brothers (the next generation of course).
My plan this year was to hang on to the group as long as possible. Sitting at the line when they announced the 1/2 way prime was for a set of Bontrager Wheels, well I got sort of excited, I could use some wheels. But that prime fell on the heals of another prime and I didn't fell confident enough to hit the last corner in the top 5 to make a run for it. Maybe I should have, I didn't. BUT. At the half way mark I was still in the pack. I never was gapped. Never had a problem with the accelerations up the hill. And was feeling good.
Chris Phenix from Bikeworks was hanging out in the back. He's had a good run at the Time Trial this year and I know he's good for a strong finish. And with about 5 to go I decided that I was going to mark him. His team has to have a plan. Either Chris was going for the win or he was going to work to set his brother up for a shot.
I marked him. We came around and on the finishing stretch before the line he started moving up, and I locked on. We hit the start finish line with the bell not quite up front but with a clear path infront of us. And Chris took off. Full on hard core jump. And I hesitated hoping maybe to make it harder for someone else to benefit from the draft (not brake checking just waiting to accelerate) and then went across and we flew down the hill, no brake turned at the bottom and he motored for a bit and then he started to fade and what did I do? I attacked him pretty hard and pulled the rest of the field out, full gas, max effort, up to the next turn, slightly overcooked the line and started to power up the hill before I detonated.
But then only one or two came around, then another couple, and a few more. Everyone seemed to be strung right out! Awesome. People were still passing me as I made it to the top of the hill. Eventually Chris came up along side me and we rode into the finish together I pushed him to make sure he finished ahead of me on the results and from looking back and not seeing anyone I assumed we were the last two to cross the line. Results show it differently but still. Mission accomplished.
I guess the eventual winner and prime beneficiary of our last lap shenanigans brake checked big Joe Phenix just before the line, someone ran into the back of Joe when he had to slow to avoid piling into the guy and he couldn't make up the difference. Dirty racing in my book. Not cool. Total douchebag move. If you can't win on your legs alone, find another tactic other than slamming on the brakes before the line in the middle of winding up for the sprint. My teammates managed a 7th and a 10th and the 7th place was to a guy in his very first cat 4 race. Paul is pretty strong. Nice to seem him do well. The winner also duped Paul out of a $20 prime with some good acting.
It wasn't an easy race, but I felt awesome being able to finish with the group and the ride back with Nathan was fun, did some tempo on 103 back to the EBBP, felt pretty good.
Hit the U Heights Wholefoods with the youngest for the weekly run and actually ran into Paul himself and even Brent and his whole family. Bike Racers stocking up on good food. Carts full of basic ingredients, very few packaged or processed foods.
Good stuff.
It was great seeing Chad there too, he did well for his first Crit. And I may be jinxing it all but Cat 4 crit racing is WAY safer than Cat 4 road racing. The pace is high enough and fast enough that people aren't talking or being distracted and going past the finish line a couple times seems to help everyone figure it out. Although we went past the S/F at TP a few times and that didn't matter.
Digging through the old posts for last years report had me clicking over here. Now i'm not really the most positive person in the world. And overly excessively happy people sometimes tend to make me want to punch them in the face but there's some good stuff that dude has compiled. Everything needs to be in balance... and often i could use a push more to the positive side, as pretty much all yall can attest to.
But it was a great and positive weekend.
This morning even was good too! It just started to rain at 5:45 when the dog and I got up. And kept raining until i was ready to leave.
And it stopped. No rain for the ride, just a light mist by the time I got to the city. And it was a great ride in.
Not too cold but not too hot. Wet from the atmosphere, not from sweating. A nice change. We'll see what the weather brings for the ride home.
heddwch
G
Monday, August 16, 2010
Saturday, August 14, 2010
could there be
A more beautiful morning than this?
Absolutely perfectly blue skies out there, birds singing away, and a cool 58 degree temp (well it is warmed up to the 60s now). Gorgeous morning.
A bunch of friends are camped out up at the base of Mt Washington right now waking up jazzed with anticipation for the start of the race in a few hours. I saw a shot off results boy's twitter feed and I actually wished I was there. Despite a team mate who could only do one double, and a busted bike and all the hike a bike sections and the mud and the rain... I had fun. I look back on it as a memorable time. Rumor has it this year that they've removed a lot of the really technical sections. And I think that's a good idea. Make the race focus more about duration. Either way I'm not there and that's alright with me, I'm at peace with it. Maybe in a few years, maybe we'll haul the family up and camp and hang out and let them experience it with me. I'll go back I think.
D2R2 is coming up and I'm not going to that either. It sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, except for the logistics of getting there and back, it isn't worth it to trade a weekend of CX racing for that, although then again, maybe it would be. Right now with the new team sponsor and everything else cyclocross is a priority.
This morning has been great though. Everyone else is sleeping in. I'm starting to hear voices from the kids room, quiet talking but that's it. Me and the dog just hanging out listening to the birds - looking out the big window, the red leaves of the japanese maple being caught by the morning sun with the brilliant blue backdrop, just the barest of a breeze to make them dance.
It doesn't get any better than this, windows open, relaxed and feeling good.
Perfect day to make some Bacon.
heddwch
G
Absolutely perfectly blue skies out there, birds singing away, and a cool 58 degree temp (well it is warmed up to the 60s now). Gorgeous morning.
A bunch of friends are camped out up at the base of Mt Washington right now waking up jazzed with anticipation for the start of the race in a few hours. I saw a shot off results boy's twitter feed and I actually wished I was there. Despite a team mate who could only do one double, and a busted bike and all the hike a bike sections and the mud and the rain... I had fun. I look back on it as a memorable time. Rumor has it this year that they've removed a lot of the really technical sections. And I think that's a good idea. Make the race focus more about duration. Either way I'm not there and that's alright with me, I'm at peace with it. Maybe in a few years, maybe we'll haul the family up and camp and hang out and let them experience it with me. I'll go back I think.
D2R2 is coming up and I'm not going to that either. It sounds like a hell of a lot of fun, except for the logistics of getting there and back, it isn't worth it to trade a weekend of CX racing for that, although then again, maybe it would be. Right now with the new team sponsor and everything else cyclocross is a priority.
This morning has been great though. Everyone else is sleeping in. I'm starting to hear voices from the kids room, quiet talking but that's it. Me and the dog just hanging out listening to the birds - looking out the big window, the red leaves of the japanese maple being caught by the morning sun with the brilliant blue backdrop, just the barest of a breeze to make them dance.
It doesn't get any better than this, windows open, relaxed and feeling good.
Perfect day to make some Bacon.
heddwch
G
Friday, August 13, 2010
Friday the 13th
Yeah.
So last night's bit of excitement was a mess of fire and police responding to this. I saw the Fireman get hauled off - they transfered him from an EP truck to a Barrington Truck so I assume he was from the barrington FD.
Got out for a run this morning. Not so fast but I got the amount of time in I needed. The ride in was super piano except for the little rises. not so piano up that. But it felt good. quiet power lingering in my legs in a way. extra mass in my calves it seems by the extra curves and muscluar fullness they have now. My body is slow to change, takes time to expand and allocate resources. The running is helping. The high torque loads with the short cranks on the Tandem is helping. We did intervals on the tandem last night. and wow did they ever hurt. sort of like doing intervals on a 100+ pound bike with a 55 tooth chain ring, once you get it up to speed it flies but it still takes a hell of a lot of effort to keep it going. Might try a few intervals with the kids next week when we're home together.
This film is underwhelming but worth watching. You can hit the Rapha site or go right to Vimeo (Rapha's page was hosed this morning). You can check the rest of the films out. Maybe the B2B video is better/more towards one's taste- with local flair. Okay - so just watched the film. Lots of Dan Action shots - he's of course a Rapha rider not a Circle A guy anymore but I think once a Circle-A always one.
The running on the "easy" days seems to help the hard days on the bike. As much as I tried to get the 4 days in a row on the 'plan' it just isn't working. I do find it important to run at least 3 days in a row getting started, seems to accelerate the adaptation but now that is over and in the second/base phase things being regular and consistent w/o hurting the cycling legs is more important maybe than running 3 or 4 days in a row. Maybe I'm actually learning a bit, learning something about training. Or I'm just integrating and rationalizing changing to train the way some older faster friend suggested at one time upon hearing of my 4 days in a row plan.
One thing I am convinced of: Running is good for cyclocross racers. No, not running the way my new team mate GCDavid runs, or Turdowski does. No those triathletes are fucking nuts. I don't really see myself being able to do that multi-sport thing. My running wouldn't even be considered a warm up for a real runner like say Keith Kelly. No, but, it is that small addition. The little extra stress you can add. The hill intervals, or stair climbing intervals you do later on once a tolerance/base is built. That's what pays off. When you have the muscles working then you can add the anaerobic CX specific workouts. But like coming back to riding you need to have a base before you can do sprint workouts and have them be effective.
Time to motor on out for a thing with my daughter.
Feeling somewhat in a groove, not so much writing anything new or ground breaking or worth reading. But the words are flowing. If i let them roll out long enough something will certainly come out worth while. for now I suppose I will be content with just taking this moment of peace and oneness with the words and relish it.
There is actually a pretty solid rumor that I will be on a new bike this season for CX. New sponsor for the team, new team mates, and a new bike? What's a guy to do, besides try and see more stuff on ebay to pay for it all.
heddwch
G
So last night's bit of excitement was a mess of fire and police responding to this. I saw the Fireman get hauled off - they transfered him from an EP truck to a Barrington Truck so I assume he was from the barrington FD.
Got out for a run this morning. Not so fast but I got the amount of time in I needed. The ride in was super piano except for the little rises. not so piano up that. But it felt good. quiet power lingering in my legs in a way. extra mass in my calves it seems by the extra curves and muscluar fullness they have now. My body is slow to change, takes time to expand and allocate resources. The running is helping. The high torque loads with the short cranks on the Tandem is helping. We did intervals on the tandem last night. and wow did they ever hurt. sort of like doing intervals on a 100+ pound bike with a 55 tooth chain ring, once you get it up to speed it flies but it still takes a hell of a lot of effort to keep it going. Might try a few intervals with the kids next week when we're home together.
This film is underwhelming but worth watching. You can hit the Rapha site or go right to Vimeo (Rapha's page was hosed this morning). You can check the rest of the films out. Maybe the B2B video is better/more towards one's taste- with local flair. Okay - so just watched the film. Lots of Dan Action shots - he's of course a Rapha rider not a Circle A guy anymore but I think once a Circle-A always one.
The running on the "easy" days seems to help the hard days on the bike. As much as I tried to get the 4 days in a row on the 'plan' it just isn't working. I do find it important to run at least 3 days in a row getting started, seems to accelerate the adaptation but now that is over and in the second/base phase things being regular and consistent w/o hurting the cycling legs is more important maybe than running 3 or 4 days in a row. Maybe I'm actually learning a bit, learning something about training. Or I'm just integrating and rationalizing changing to train the way some older faster friend suggested at one time upon hearing of my 4 days in a row plan.
One thing I am convinced of: Running is good for cyclocross racers. No, not running the way my new team mate GCDavid runs, or Turdowski does. No those triathletes are fucking nuts. I don't really see myself being able to do that multi-sport thing. My running wouldn't even be considered a warm up for a real runner like say Keith Kelly. No, but, it is that small addition. The little extra stress you can add. The hill intervals, or stair climbing intervals you do later on once a tolerance/base is built. That's what pays off. When you have the muscles working then you can add the anaerobic CX specific workouts. But like coming back to riding you need to have a base before you can do sprint workouts and have them be effective.
Time to motor on out for a thing with my daughter.
Feeling somewhat in a groove, not so much writing anything new or ground breaking or worth reading. But the words are flowing. If i let them roll out long enough something will certainly come out worth while. for now I suppose I will be content with just taking this moment of peace and oneness with the words and relish it.
There is actually a pretty solid rumor that I will be on a new bike this season for CX. New sponsor for the team, new team mates, and a new bike? What's a guy to do, besides try and see more stuff on ebay to pay for it all.
heddwch
G
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Is this next?
Solobreak seems to have single handedly brought the 40 of malt liquor back to popularity in the New England bike racing scene.
Is this next?
Is this next?
Kitchen Stadium: Inside L.A.'s Street Food Fest - Food - The Atlantic
Kitchen Stadium: Inside L.A.'s Street Food Fest - Food - The Atlantic
Man - that looks like a BLAST... the photos, the shrimp tacos...
is it lunch time yet?
Man - that looks like a BLAST... the photos, the shrimp tacos...
is it lunch time yet?
well from 4 to every other day
I tweaked a small muscle in my back on Monday and it is still pissed at me. Esp right when i wake up. So I bagged the bleary eyed run that would have certainly been a plod like yesterday, in small hopes that I can get up and blitz it tomorrow. Plodding isn't so much fun.
Now before I forget I suppose I need to clear something up. Solo seemed to read yesterday that I suggested that there's a lot of dopers in Masters racing around here. I am very happy (or naive) to say I believe the field is pretty fucking clean. I know most people by name, many better than that and you can pretty much look down the results list and explain w/o drugs where there are. Sure there might be one or two but I actually kind of doubt it. Masters racing in New England is fucking cut throat serious but at the end of the day everyone still shows up with what they got. There are plenty of ex-pros in the ranks, past national champions, multi-podium placings in many years. Legitimately fast dudes. The race I "heard" about, oh btw, I have a hard time saying I read anything on Twitter - can you really call looking at 140 characters reading? This race where a bunch of people in the masters race DNSd or something because the vampires showed up was a big money crit in VA if the stories are true. Please don't take what I said yesterday as suggesting that any of yall you regularly kick my ass on the bike are on the juice. One of those things maybe should have left alone. Hell I figured tossing in "verge" points would be enough of a red-flag about the sarcasm/humor/joking nature of the comment.
Skipping the run actually left my legs pretty fresh for the ride in. A few yards away from jumping on the path one of my co-workers headed past, he's not one of the slower ones and I figured, no run? lets crank this up. And my legs actually responded pretty well.
Took a while to catch (on the slight rise into Riverside) and I said hey and slowed a touch to see if he was going to lift the pace to chat a bit, but nope, he kept it steady so I had no choice, keep up the speed. And keep it up we did.
My stoker actually even worked most of the ride in. Before long I caught a glimpse of saddle bagged commuter, one bag on the left, that's one of the Marks and well, i dug a bit deeper into the red and we caught him and passed him. He said it was like being passed by a Freight train. He did lift his pace and came up to speed and I managed to hold the speed up to the rise and then keep the watts up over the slight hill. Mark said even my stoker was breathing hard (i was way beyond the limit), that was a cool moment for me. She might not have many watts but it does make a difference a bit like a draft. So no run but I at least got a good Italian Tune Up this morning on the way in.
No closer to being ready for a crit on sunday but ready or not i'm racing, gonna be fun racing with a few team mates. We'll see what happens.
heddwch
G
Now before I forget I suppose I need to clear something up. Solo seemed to read yesterday that I suggested that there's a lot of dopers in Masters racing around here. I am very happy (or naive) to say I believe the field is pretty fucking clean. I know most people by name, many better than that and you can pretty much look down the results list and explain w/o drugs where there are. Sure there might be one or two but I actually kind of doubt it. Masters racing in New England is fucking cut throat serious but at the end of the day everyone still shows up with what they got. There are plenty of ex-pros in the ranks, past national champions, multi-podium placings in many years. Legitimately fast dudes. The race I "heard" about, oh btw, I have a hard time saying I read anything on Twitter - can you really call looking at 140 characters reading? This race where a bunch of people in the masters race DNSd or something because the vampires showed up was a big money crit in VA if the stories are true. Please don't take what I said yesterday as suggesting that any of yall you regularly kick my ass on the bike are on the juice. One of those things maybe should have left alone. Hell I figured tossing in "verge" points would be enough of a red-flag about the sarcasm/humor/joking nature of the comment.
Skipping the run actually left my legs pretty fresh for the ride in. A few yards away from jumping on the path one of my co-workers headed past, he's not one of the slower ones and I figured, no run? lets crank this up. And my legs actually responded pretty well.
Took a while to catch (on the slight rise into Riverside) and I said hey and slowed a touch to see if he was going to lift the pace to chat a bit, but nope, he kept it steady so I had no choice, keep up the speed. And keep it up we did.
My stoker actually even worked most of the ride in. Before long I caught a glimpse of saddle bagged commuter, one bag on the left, that's one of the Marks and well, i dug a bit deeper into the red and we caught him and passed him. He said it was like being passed by a Freight train. He did lift his pace and came up to speed and I managed to hold the speed up to the rise and then keep the watts up over the slight hill. Mark said even my stoker was breathing hard (i was way beyond the limit), that was a cool moment for me. She might not have many watts but it does make a difference a bit like a draft. So no run but I at least got a good Italian Tune Up this morning on the way in.
No closer to being ready for a crit on sunday but ready or not i'm racing, gonna be fun racing with a few team mates. We'll see what happens.
heddwch
G
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
HUMMUS
or how to make killer hummus w/o buying a preservative loaded pepsi product (ie Sabra)...
So Sabra is a popular Hummus with the skinny bike racer's coach. BTW be careful hiring him if your body fat is over 6% - or at least be prepared to be called a big fat ass (just kidding Kurt) - but he worked some crazy magic with Skinny White Dude last year, and I fully expect him to coach that busted neck in the winter moving all summer team mate of mine back into nearly the same form he started last year with.
Enough Pre-amble?
So this Hummus isn't my totally my own recipe. Hell it isn't really mine, but I'm making some specifics changes (like doubling the recipe) that I feel are important. When you're making something that keeps quite well for a long time (7 days in the fridge WITHOUT PRESERVATIVES) ya might as well make a bunch. Besides it is good anti-cancer/bike racer food.
What you need on hand:
1-2 lemons (two not juicy ones make a double batch or one super juicy one does)
fresh garlic (hardneck bought from the farmers market is the best choice)
Salt
cayenne pepper (you need this to balance the flavors - it won't make it spicy)
Cumin powder (i grind my own from seed every time i need it)
extra virgin olive oil (you are not using a ton and besides it is REALLY good for you)
Tahini
2 cans of garbanzo beans.
AND a food processor (any old Cuisinart like thing with a metal chopping blade will work)
Now.
Which beans and tahini are important. If you don't have access to a Wholefoods Eden Foods or possibly Wild Harvest or other organic whole garbanzos might be fine.
Garbanzos:
Okay and just as important as starting with good beans (yes I've tried it with other beans and it hasn't been as good) is using a good Tahini. This is sort of hard to find. I've tried other Tahinis but never really liked the results, could be because this has the balance of oil and protein I prefer and seems to be most common with store bought stuff for 5x the price.
This stuff: Krinos Tahini. I get it at shaws or where ever i can find it. When I find it i buy 2-3 jars of it because it really is that good.
Also it keeps really well in the fridge. The metal tinned stuff always gets funky or moldy before I make enough Hummus to use it up. This stuff is good for a long time. And it tastes great.
oh and I use the 365 extra virgin olive oil. it is very consistent and priced very well, no point using anything lighter, you will be depriving yourself of some amazingly beneficial fatty acids, not to mention flavor.
Here's a soap box opportunity:
What you start with, your ingredients will determine how good your food will be. No amount of seasoning or preparing can make up for a crappy base product. Okay well if you put enough fat and sugar and salt in something many people will think it is good.
Back to the hummus.
6 tablespoons of FRESH squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup of water
Mix these two together in a measuring cup/pourable bowl
1/2 cup tahini
4 tablespoons of olive oil
mix that up together in a separate measuring cup/bowl thing
Open up two cans of the 365 organic garbanzo beans drain and rinse them under cold water (one can at a time in a wire mesh colander) and put them in the food processor.
I take 3-5 cloves of garlic (garlic is good) but if the clove is huge just one or two (or to your personal taste - garlic is pure awesomeness) and roughly chop them or run them through a garlic press and put it in with the Beans in the food processor
Add a teaspoon of salt (I use the Real Salt stuff) to the food processor.
Add a pinch of Cayenne pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin to the food processor.
Blend the beans together with the garlic for about 15 seconds or so scraping down the sides to make sure it is evenly processed.
once the garbanzos are all chopped up in there turn the processor on and drizzle the lemon juice and water.
It should get pretty smooth. And somewhat thick, but not too thick. If it is really thick add some water (this is just something you have to figure out - it will thin out a bit with the oil/tahini).
Once that is integrated then while it is running pour the tahini in and let it run until it is smooth and creamy.
Add oil or water (your preference) to get the consistency you like.
Transfer to a big bowl and drizzle some olive oil over the top and serve.
It takes WAY less time to make it than it did to write this. Probably less time to make it than read it.
Once you get the basic recipe mastered then you can toss in variations for the next batch.
Do you like Roasted Garlic Hummus?
cut the tops off two garlic bulbs (the whole bundle of cloves) and roast them in the oven until they are brown and squishy and use that instead of the other garlic (you can squeeze the heads into the beans like you would squeeze the roasted garlic over bread to make garlic bread.
Roasted red pepper hummus? Roast some peppers, take the skins off and these can replace the water (they are mostly water).
Like the toasted pine nut sabra? Get your pine nuts and toast them in a hot dry pan until they get browned and add them to the mix.
What ever you want.
Be creative.
Olives? Go for it.
Serrano peppers? Chipolte/roasted jalapeños?
Just be patient, make the base recipe a few times before you tackle the variations.
And yes - like i said - this isn't an original recipe completely. It is my adaptation of the America's Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated "restaurant style hummus"
enjoy
heddwch
G
So Sabra is a popular Hummus with the skinny bike racer's coach. BTW be careful hiring him if your body fat is over 6% - or at least be prepared to be called a big fat ass (just kidding Kurt) - but he worked some crazy magic with Skinny White Dude last year, and I fully expect him to coach that busted neck in the winter moving all summer team mate of mine back into nearly the same form he started last year with.
Enough Pre-amble?
So this Hummus isn't my totally my own recipe. Hell it isn't really mine, but I'm making some specifics changes (like doubling the recipe) that I feel are important. When you're making something that keeps quite well for a long time (7 days in the fridge WITHOUT PRESERVATIVES) ya might as well make a bunch. Besides it is good anti-cancer/bike racer food.
What you need on hand:
1-2 lemons (two not juicy ones make a double batch or one super juicy one does)
fresh garlic (hardneck bought from the farmers market is the best choice)
Salt
cayenne pepper (you need this to balance the flavors - it won't make it spicy)
Cumin powder (i grind my own from seed every time i need it)
extra virgin olive oil (you are not using a ton and besides it is REALLY good for you)
Tahini
2 cans of garbanzo beans.
AND a food processor (any old Cuisinart like thing with a metal chopping blade will work)
Now.
Which beans and tahini are important. If you don't have access to a Wholefoods Eden Foods or possibly Wild Harvest or other organic whole garbanzos might be fine.
Garbanzos:
Okay and just as important as starting with good beans (yes I've tried it with other beans and it hasn't been as good) is using a good Tahini. This is sort of hard to find. I've tried other Tahinis but never really liked the results, could be because this has the balance of oil and protein I prefer and seems to be most common with store bought stuff for 5x the price.
This stuff: Krinos Tahini. I get it at shaws or where ever i can find it. When I find it i buy 2-3 jars of it because it really is that good.
Also it keeps really well in the fridge. The metal tinned stuff always gets funky or moldy before I make enough Hummus to use it up. This stuff is good for a long time. And it tastes great.
oh and I use the 365 extra virgin olive oil. it is very consistent and priced very well, no point using anything lighter, you will be depriving yourself of some amazingly beneficial fatty acids, not to mention flavor.
Here's a soap box opportunity:
What you start with, your ingredients will determine how good your food will be. No amount of seasoning or preparing can make up for a crappy base product. Okay well if you put enough fat and sugar and salt in something many people will think it is good.
Back to the hummus.
6 tablespoons of FRESH squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup of water
Mix these two together in a measuring cup/pourable bowl
1/2 cup tahini
4 tablespoons of olive oil
mix that up together in a separate measuring cup/bowl thing
Open up two cans of the 365 organic garbanzo beans drain and rinse them under cold water (one can at a time in a wire mesh colander) and put them in the food processor.
I take 3-5 cloves of garlic (garlic is good) but if the clove is huge just one or two (or to your personal taste - garlic is pure awesomeness) and roughly chop them or run them through a garlic press and put it in with the Beans in the food processor
Add a teaspoon of salt (I use the Real Salt stuff) to the food processor.
Add a pinch of Cayenne pepper and 1/2 teaspoon of ground cumin to the food processor.
Blend the beans together with the garlic for about 15 seconds or so scraping down the sides to make sure it is evenly processed.
once the garbanzos are all chopped up in there turn the processor on and drizzle the lemon juice and water.
It should get pretty smooth. And somewhat thick, but not too thick. If it is really thick add some water (this is just something you have to figure out - it will thin out a bit with the oil/tahini).
Once that is integrated then while it is running pour the tahini in and let it run until it is smooth and creamy.
Add oil or water (your preference) to get the consistency you like.
Transfer to a big bowl and drizzle some olive oil over the top and serve.
It takes WAY less time to make it than it did to write this. Probably less time to make it than read it.
Once you get the basic recipe mastered then you can toss in variations for the next batch.
Do you like Roasted Garlic Hummus?
cut the tops off two garlic bulbs (the whole bundle of cloves) and roast them in the oven until they are brown and squishy and use that instead of the other garlic (you can squeeze the heads into the beans like you would squeeze the roasted garlic over bread to make garlic bread.
Roasted red pepper hummus? Roast some peppers, take the skins off and these can replace the water (they are mostly water).
Like the toasted pine nut sabra? Get your pine nuts and toast them in a hot dry pan until they get browned and add them to the mix.
What ever you want.
Be creative.
Olives? Go for it.
Serrano peppers? Chipolte/roasted jalapeños?
Just be patient, make the base recipe a few times before you tackle the variations.
And yes - like i said - this isn't an original recipe completely. It is my adaptation of the America's Test Kitchen/Cooks Illustrated "restaurant style hummus"
enjoy
heddwch
G
momentary what i am thinking snapshot
Popped in my head - need to get it down and out somewhere so i can look back at it in 5 years and say either i'm a f'n genius or an insensitive jackass:
the cure for most cancer he is fighting is diet - no money in fixing what people eat. wait till they get the "disease" then find a cure.
Cancer is no different than Diabetes. Some people have Type I, but the overwhelming majority and the biggest draw on the Health care system are not the Type I people. No it is the Type II. Cancer should be busted down into Type I and Type II designations. Until it does his Livestrong foundation will be pissing money into the wind (keeping lots of researchers employed in the mean time).
the cure for most cancer he is fighting is diet - no money in fixing what people eat. wait till they get the "disease" then find a cure.
Cancer is no different than Diabetes. Some people have Type I, but the overwhelming majority and the biggest draw on the Health care system are not the Type I people. No it is the Type II. Cancer should be busted down into Type I and Type II designations. Until it does his Livestrong foundation will be pissing money into the wind (keeping lots of researchers employed in the mean time).
Loaf of Toast
A Loaf Of Toast: Dad's Bowling, My Cyclocross
Strange bit of truth there eh? Nice write up Joe. Nice.
Strange bit of truth there eh? Nice write up Joe. Nice.
sore
throat
what a wonderful thing to wake up to. The whole family has gone through it, sore through sinus crap, it seems to be fading and I was the last to get it. Maybe something to do with over exertion and then the relief of getting the rusty race wagon running turning into an exhausted fatigue. That sort of thing where you carry on well beyond your strength and reserves and are fine until the end when your defenses all let go at once.
Despite that I still managed to get out and plod along my trail today. First run w/o the dog AND w/o the idiot device (iPod). Plodding was what i could do. Slow. very very slow. But, by the end it felt pretty good and that was a good 20 minutes of extra "cross" training that WILL pay off (being positive here) in the up coming season. That and G-ride's getting fat and doing nothing this week. Although that could be his secret diabolical plan to rest up and prep for an intense couple weeks of training leading into VT weekend. I should probably register for that sooner than later, eh? Only 30 something registered for VT and G-ster right now. No rush.
Oh and this is pretty annoying. But maybe they should show up more often? Or at least to all the 35+ CX races I'll be doing, maybe then I might get a wiff of a verge point. A handful are twittering about it right now. Me No Like. but I'm not surprised. Hell you can buy all that shit at GNC for cheap money and it works. There will always be someone cheating/using at all levels. That's human nature. All ya can do is ride clean and do your best. Fucking Foley has been lighting it up lately. Damn.
And I didn't know Bittman was a runner. Great post up here. Worth a read. I'm not super running focused right now but it is the "new" training feature, at least until I start to add in the fluid trainer sprints in the AM and maybe PM. Thinking about maybe adding a set of 30s Z6 (or Z5+ depending on your system) in the evening this week - or maybe Saturday morning - to try and prep the legs for the shock of the crit on Sunday. I haven't been totally devoid of max efforts but they haven't been a focus yet. It has me somewhat worried. But, not as much, I should be in a stronger place than I was last year (I know, I keep saying that -we'll see if it is true or not soon enough).
Everyone is now doing what Gary Klein started doing in the 80s. Using a bigger bearing for the bottom race than the top. 25+ years ahead of his time with bike design. Why did it take so long? Two current examples Trek and Blue (CX bikes of course).
That Blue is mighty sweet no? The Sl is supah pimp but hey that EX is still almost as pimp and a whole wopping 100 grams heavier! BB30 in both and with the 1.5 bottom bearing.
So what is up with all the fork crown cable mounts showing up on bikes? In the Mid-90s Kona had them for their project2 forks for people who still hadn't gone to V-brakes (newest hottest braking trend then). They were pretty cool. Worked well. I'd wager there are still a pile of them in a random bin at Velocipede Peddler in East Lansing Michigan. I guess the bike makers are going with this instead of figuring out how to make a fork that doesn't chatter. Putting canti-bosses on a road fork just doesn't seem to be the answer, but putting canti-bosses and a fork mounted cable hanger on a road fork does? *shrug* whatever works and sells bikes. Oh hey look at this. Those cable stops look ALOT like... oh never mind, yall know what I'm going to say. Although I think Gary K would take issue with the placement. The ones on his bikes were there for structural reasons, strengthening and stiffening the tubes w/o adding any appreciable weight (that putting them somewhere else would do). Oh btw the brakes on that Trek are FUGLY - gross. I hate that top mounted exposed spring. It was a bad design in the 90s, still a bad design now (IMNSHO).
How did I miss this. Maybe that's Solobreak's secret weapon this season. JONNY BOLD can always be found in the beer tent after his CX races too. They've GOT to be on to something.
I WANT TO EAT THIS. The whole bowl. Man that looks soooooo good.
while still random here's something else that's crazy cool and sounds like fun. When I saw the link to the article I thought maybe it was about adult cooking camp (being end of summer already with kids all getting ready to go back to school) but nope. Kids camp. Next year? Who knows. J&WU had a kids summer program IIRC. I forget what age it starts but maybe one of my assistants will do that and be promoted from kitchen helper to chef (which one sous, prep, line... to be determined). Executive Chef position is not open. Although some times I am ready to fire the Exec Chef. Sort of like when I contemplate firing my Coach.
LaughingSquid has some good stuff over there. A handful that i've seen tweeted or posted in other places (denver photo's ok cupid iPhone users have more sex partners findings and photo attractiveness analysis.
alright - that's enough adding and adding and adding...
heddwch
G
what a wonderful thing to wake up to. The whole family has gone through it, sore through sinus crap, it seems to be fading and I was the last to get it. Maybe something to do with over exertion and then the relief of getting the rusty race wagon running turning into an exhausted fatigue. That sort of thing where you carry on well beyond your strength and reserves and are fine until the end when your defenses all let go at once.
Despite that I still managed to get out and plod along my trail today. First run w/o the dog AND w/o the idiot device (iPod). Plodding was what i could do. Slow. very very slow. But, by the end it felt pretty good and that was a good 20 minutes of extra "cross" training that WILL pay off (being positive here) in the up coming season. That and G-ride's getting fat and doing nothing this week. Although that could be his secret diabolical plan to rest up and prep for an intense couple weeks of training leading into VT weekend. I should probably register for that sooner than later, eh? Only 30 something registered for VT and G-ster right now. No rush.
Oh and this is pretty annoying. But maybe they should show up more often? Or at least to all the 35+ CX races I'll be doing, maybe then I might get a wiff of a verge point. A handful are twittering about it right now. Me No Like. but I'm not surprised. Hell you can buy all that shit at GNC for cheap money and it works. There will always be someone cheating/using at all levels. That's human nature. All ya can do is ride clean and do your best. Fucking Foley has been lighting it up lately. Damn.
And I didn't know Bittman was a runner. Great post up here. Worth a read. I'm not super running focused right now but it is the "new" training feature, at least until I start to add in the fluid trainer sprints in the AM and maybe PM. Thinking about maybe adding a set of 30s Z6 (or Z5+ depending on your system) in the evening this week - or maybe Saturday morning - to try and prep the legs for the shock of the crit on Sunday. I haven't been totally devoid of max efforts but they haven't been a focus yet. It has me somewhat worried. But, not as much, I should be in a stronger place than I was last year (I know, I keep saying that -we'll see if it is true or not soon enough).
Everyone is now doing what Gary Klein started doing in the 80s. Using a bigger bearing for the bottom race than the top. 25+ years ahead of his time with bike design. Why did it take so long? Two current examples Trek and Blue (CX bikes of course).
That Blue is mighty sweet no? The Sl is supah pimp but hey that EX is still almost as pimp and a whole wopping 100 grams heavier! BB30 in both and with the 1.5 bottom bearing.
So what is up with all the fork crown cable mounts showing up on bikes? In the Mid-90s Kona had them for their project2 forks for people who still hadn't gone to V-brakes (newest hottest braking trend then). They were pretty cool. Worked well. I'd wager there are still a pile of them in a random bin at Velocipede Peddler in East Lansing Michigan. I guess the bike makers are going with this instead of figuring out how to make a fork that doesn't chatter. Putting canti-bosses on a road fork just doesn't seem to be the answer, but putting canti-bosses and a fork mounted cable hanger on a road fork does? *shrug* whatever works and sells bikes. Oh hey look at this. Those cable stops look ALOT like... oh never mind, yall know what I'm going to say. Although I think Gary K would take issue with the placement. The ones on his bikes were there for structural reasons, strengthening and stiffening the tubes w/o adding any appreciable weight (that putting them somewhere else would do). Oh btw the brakes on that Trek are FUGLY - gross. I hate that top mounted exposed spring. It was a bad design in the 90s, still a bad design now (IMNSHO).
How did I miss this. Maybe that's Solobreak's secret weapon this season. JONNY BOLD can always be found in the beer tent after his CX races too. They've GOT to be on to something.
I WANT TO EAT THIS. The whole bowl. Man that looks soooooo good.
while still random here's something else that's crazy cool and sounds like fun. When I saw the link to the article I thought maybe it was about adult cooking camp (being end of summer already with kids all getting ready to go back to school) but nope. Kids camp. Next year? Who knows. J&WU had a kids summer program IIRC. I forget what age it starts but maybe one of my assistants will do that and be promoted from kitchen helper to chef (which one sous, prep, line... to be determined). Executive Chef position is not open. Although some times I am ready to fire the Exec Chef. Sort of like when I contemplate firing my Coach.
LaughingSquid has some good stuff over there. A handful that i've seen tweeted or posted in other places (denver photo's ok cupid iPhone users have more sex partners findings and photo attractiveness analysis.
alright - that's enough adding and adding and adding...
heddwch
G
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
We have lost a great Cyclocross Champion
Radomir Simunek Sr has left this place. Take a moment to remember what he's left us as a legacy in Cyclocross.
The first link I saw to the news was not in English (early this morning) so thank you Cyclocrosss Magazine for getting the story up on the web page.
Rest in Peace Radomir. Rest in Peace.
The first link I saw to the news was not in English (early this morning) so thank you Cyclocrosss Magazine for getting the story up on the web page.
Rest in Peace Radomir. Rest in Peace.
2900 or 8/9/10
eight nine ten
what a day.
Quick status report:
Rusty Race Wagon is operable again. But the blown up bits were not caused by their failure but by a sticky ignition switch. The clutch WAS slipping (alot) and the starter was old (original) and lots of that era have been failing lately.
So all in all stuff that needed to be done, and had it not happened then we probably wouldn't have scored such a deal on a nearly perfect vehicle for the family. The rusty race wagon becomes my beater.
I'm bruised, sore and probably will have black under my nails for a week, but it works. And I can move on to CX season.
Team is coming together. Should be a blast, can't wait.
I had planned on running this morning. Got a decent run with the dog on monday morning but this morning was way too tired so i bagged on it. This is the last week with 4 days of running (supposed to be M-Th) before dropping to three days (TWT). Last week i had to bail on the Wed AM run but just swapped W for F. Might have to swap T for Friday this week. Got all registered for Fall River. So I'll be there. Not sure if I'm going to ride there and ride home like last year - or if everyone comes to the race and maybe I just ride home. I'd like to at least ride one leg to extend the saddle time (without growing mushrooms wearing bibs in the car).
I feel pretty good about where my torque is at right now. Just need to work on the high end full throttle stuff (bike racing) schedule is pretty light going into the first races, and man. They are NOT far away. Yikes. I best get registering I suppose.
heddwch
G
And if you've missed it JONNY BOLD left some DNA in Kentucky, and not in the fun way, send him healing mojo if ya got some.
what a day.
Quick status report:
Rusty Race Wagon is operable again. But the blown up bits were not caused by their failure but by a sticky ignition switch. The clutch WAS slipping (alot) and the starter was old (original) and lots of that era have been failing lately.
So all in all stuff that needed to be done, and had it not happened then we probably wouldn't have scored such a deal on a nearly perfect vehicle for the family. The rusty race wagon becomes my beater.
I'm bruised, sore and probably will have black under my nails for a week, but it works. And I can move on to CX season.
Team is coming together. Should be a blast, can't wait.
I had planned on running this morning. Got a decent run with the dog on monday morning but this morning was way too tired so i bagged on it. This is the last week with 4 days of running (supposed to be M-Th) before dropping to three days (TWT). Last week i had to bail on the Wed AM run but just swapped W for F. Might have to swap T for Friday this week. Got all registered for Fall River. So I'll be there. Not sure if I'm going to ride there and ride home like last year - or if everyone comes to the race and maybe I just ride home. I'd like to at least ride one leg to extend the saddle time (without growing mushrooms wearing bibs in the car).
I feel pretty good about where my torque is at right now. Just need to work on the high end full throttle stuff (bike racing) schedule is pretty light going into the first races, and man. They are NOT far away. Yikes. I best get registering I suppose.
heddwch
G
And if you've missed it JONNY BOLD left some DNA in Kentucky, and not in the fun way, send him healing mojo if ya got some.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
change of plans
So the original plan was to get the transmission back in the rusty race wagon by mid-day, then hit the store for the weekly shopping trip then finish bolting everything in place.
Well.
It is a job that is best done with two people (laying under a 100# gearbox isn't the best idea by yourself). And my help couldn't make it today.
So we headed to the store and after a rare meal out last night and a Gazpacho leading into a mediocre fried haddock and chips we saw some Gazpacho in the prepared food section and K and I decided we should have that tonight to go with the rest of the dinner.
Bittman tweeted about Gazpacho today so i took it as a convergence of signs that I need to make some.
fresh tomatoes? well i didn't pick any up, i'm gun shy about buying them in the store. But Bittman says I can use a 28 oz can of tomatoes. Perfect.
so I get the blender out - oops, looks like I assumed it was put away clean, when it had some remains of a bit of margarita from a party a while back. Never assume assembled equipment is clean i guess. Oops.
Turns out i have to divide everything in 1/2 because it doesn't all fit in the blender.
what goes into the blender?
1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 medium cucumber (75% peeled and chopped)
1 medium green pepper chopped
1 medium onion chopped
2 ribs celery finely chopped (finely so make sure the veins are not noticed)
4 cloves of garlic
small bunch of cilantro (very small - could use parsley but i had cilantro)
Cayenne pepper (just to taste)
salt
pepper
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar (white wine would work too again that's what I had)
Blend to consistency
did one 1/2 of the stuff - then the other (this is something you need to put in a non-reactive bowl, ie no metal not even Stainless). Mixed em up.
Tasted, and put into quart containers in the fridge to chill until dinner. The raw garlic and onion and cayenne gives it a nice 'heat' that isn't like chili pepper hot.
The oldest approved after maybe 10 spoonfuls and then proclaimed that she would EAT THE WHOLE THING! Youngest thought it was good, but a touch spicy.
No car work yet today. But we got the bontrager's wheels set up for CX (oldest) and the bike room somewhat cleaned and sort of organized. Kind of. always more work do to. Put up the helmet wall of fame (there were a few old helmets kicking around, broken and also just old).
I might just try and stick the transmission on the jack and lift it into place and see if I can get it in there alone. But I may just bag it and plan on tomorrow. What's one more day after a month+?
Besides tomorrow is a paid holiday for me, working in the last state to have Victory over Japan day as a holiday on the books. "We" don't call it that anymore of course, it has gone from that to VJ day to V day to who knows what else now, but man people here LOVE this holiday. Who wouldn't? A paid holiday in the middle of August? What it means is that this next week is when most people take a late summer vacation. And that's not a bad thing either.
I'm talking myself out of working on the car right now aren't I? Oh well. Maybe I can still hoist that box up on the jack and put it in place.
heddwch
G
Well.
It is a job that is best done with two people (laying under a 100# gearbox isn't the best idea by yourself). And my help couldn't make it today.
So we headed to the store and after a rare meal out last night and a Gazpacho leading into a mediocre fried haddock and chips we saw some Gazpacho in the prepared food section and K and I decided we should have that tonight to go with the rest of the dinner.
Bittman tweeted about Gazpacho today so i took it as a convergence of signs that I need to make some.
fresh tomatoes? well i didn't pick any up, i'm gun shy about buying them in the store. But Bittman says I can use a 28 oz can of tomatoes. Perfect.
so I get the blender out - oops, looks like I assumed it was put away clean, when it had some remains of a bit of margarita from a party a while back. Never assume assembled equipment is clean i guess. Oops.
Turns out i have to divide everything in 1/2 because it doesn't all fit in the blender.
what goes into the blender?
1 28oz can of crushed tomatoes
1 medium cucumber (75% peeled and chopped)
1 medium green pepper chopped
1 medium onion chopped
2 ribs celery finely chopped (finely so make sure the veins are not noticed)
4 cloves of garlic
small bunch of cilantro (very small - could use parsley but i had cilantro)
Cayenne pepper (just to taste)
salt
pepper
4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 tablespoons brown rice vinegar (white wine would work too again that's what I had)
Blend to consistency
did one 1/2 of the stuff - then the other (this is something you need to put in a non-reactive bowl, ie no metal not even Stainless). Mixed em up.
Tasted, and put into quart containers in the fridge to chill until dinner. The raw garlic and onion and cayenne gives it a nice 'heat' that isn't like chili pepper hot.
The oldest approved after maybe 10 spoonfuls and then proclaimed that she would EAT THE WHOLE THING! Youngest thought it was good, but a touch spicy.
No car work yet today. But we got the bontrager's wheels set up for CX (oldest) and the bike room somewhat cleaned and sort of organized. Kind of. always more work do to. Put up the helmet wall of fame (there were a few old helmets kicking around, broken and also just old).
I might just try and stick the transmission on the jack and lift it into place and see if I can get it in there alone. But I may just bag it and plan on tomorrow. What's one more day after a month+?
Besides tomorrow is a paid holiday for me, working in the last state to have Victory over Japan day as a holiday on the books. "We" don't call it that anymore of course, it has gone from that to VJ day to V day to who knows what else now, but man people here LOVE this holiday. Who wouldn't? A paid holiday in the middle of August? What it means is that this next week is when most people take a late summer vacation. And that's not a bad thing either.
I'm talking myself out of working on the car right now aren't I? Oh well. Maybe I can still hoist that box up on the jack and put it in place.
heddwch
G
Saturday, August 07, 2010
baby steps
The car was towed to the house undrivable on July 2nd, 2010. It was mostly dismantled on the 4th (in the oppressive heat). The gear box got stuck and was left hanging until thursday when the immobile car needed to be closed up while we were gone on vacation.
Then, last Saturday the gearbox was removed. Took some help from my brother to lift and get it off, but we did it.
Clutch came off, disc was in rough shape. almost no groove left in the grooves, 2 of the 4 springs in the disc were lose and giving the impression that they could fall out if they wanted to (but they weren't, a likely cause for noise though). The flywheel fortunately was in perfect shape. Cleaned off some of the glaze today with a blue scrubby thing and some alcohol. Nice and clean and dry.
Got the old diff flange seal off (the old one was leaking and having removed the flange, you are supposed to replace the seal) and the new one in. Lots of puttering today.
Cleaning up some bits. Getting the driveaxle seals installed. just need to get the transmission bolted back up and then, drain and fill the tranny and hopefully remember how everything was attached when I took it apart over a month ago now.
That's a long time to remember where all the damn bolts go. But as I was sorting through what goes where, I think i actually have a pretty good idea where it all goes and how it goes back together.
A pain in the butt job no doubt. I'm tempted to clean the gearbox, but, you know what - if i do then I just have to put an anti-corrision coating on it anyway so, i'm not going to bother with that. G-ride just won't be jumping to crawl under there next time.
Next big job might be welding some new floor pans on, or some nice heavy duty plates so that when it is jacked up the jack won't be in the driver's footwell.
It is an old car. But that engine is still in great shape. Heck if it came down to it I could probably take that engine out and get more for it than the car in one piece. If i could find a decent replacement? well don't tempt me. Maybe I should start looking for a vanagon with a blown gasser motor in decent non rusty shape and do a heart transplant with the passat... would make a good summer project next year. Esp with all the massive amount of free time i have (that last bit is sarcasm).
I had briefly considered heading out for a ride, seeing if any of the local boys were looking for a last minute saturday afternoon ride, but, I'm tired. I've had enough work this week. I need a rest day. A day off. So, feet up, futzing on the computer and writing and having a Porkslap Farmhouse Ale (hint of ginger in it is awesome). It is tasty. Light beer though. Only 4.5% ABV.
Getting sleepy - either nap time or i get motivated and do some yard work. We'll see which side of me wins today.
heddwch
G
Then, last Saturday the gearbox was removed. Took some help from my brother to lift and get it off, but we did it.
Clutch came off, disc was in rough shape. almost no groove left in the grooves, 2 of the 4 springs in the disc were lose and giving the impression that they could fall out if they wanted to (but they weren't, a likely cause for noise though). The flywheel fortunately was in perfect shape. Cleaned off some of the glaze today with a blue scrubby thing and some alcohol. Nice and clean and dry.
Got the old diff flange seal off (the old one was leaking and having removed the flange, you are supposed to replace the seal) and the new one in. Lots of puttering today.
Cleaning up some bits. Getting the driveaxle seals installed. just need to get the transmission bolted back up and then, drain and fill the tranny and hopefully remember how everything was attached when I took it apart over a month ago now.
That's a long time to remember where all the damn bolts go. But as I was sorting through what goes where, I think i actually have a pretty good idea where it all goes and how it goes back together.
A pain in the butt job no doubt. I'm tempted to clean the gearbox, but, you know what - if i do then I just have to put an anti-corrision coating on it anyway so, i'm not going to bother with that. G-ride just won't be jumping to crawl under there next time.
Next big job might be welding some new floor pans on, or some nice heavy duty plates so that when it is jacked up the jack won't be in the driver's footwell.
It is an old car. But that engine is still in great shape. Heck if it came down to it I could probably take that engine out and get more for it than the car in one piece. If i could find a decent replacement? well don't tempt me. Maybe I should start looking for a vanagon with a blown gasser motor in decent non rusty shape and do a heart transplant with the passat... would make a good summer project next year. Esp with all the massive amount of free time i have (that last bit is sarcasm).
I had briefly considered heading out for a ride, seeing if any of the local boys were looking for a last minute saturday afternoon ride, but, I'm tired. I've had enough work this week. I need a rest day. A day off. So, feet up, futzing on the computer and writing and having a Porkslap Farmhouse Ale (hint of ginger in it is awesome). It is tasty. Light beer though. Only 4.5% ABV.
Getting sleepy - either nap time or i get motivated and do some yard work. We'll see which side of me wins today.
heddwch
G
Friday, August 06, 2010
Brutal
This morning should have been a nice mellow ride in.
It was going to be on time and everything too.
But, I go to bring the tandem out and thunk, the rear tire has about 5 psi in it. WTF. Damn it.
Quick spin around shows nothing sticking out. Crap we have to leave like right now! Tire change time. Grab my SV17 out of the bag and (maybe it was an SV16 i don't remember). After checking the tire (man it is paper thin, not like my normal Marathon Plus) and the rim, I put an ounce or two of Doc Blue in the tube and get it all together.
Not too bad of a tire change. But then I get done, wash the Doc Blue juice off my hands any my passenger isn't quite ready to go (after walking out with the tire apart all ready to go helmet on and everything). We head out at 22 after the hour or a few minutes later than that. The day before we left at 10 after and got to the destination at 46 after and we didn't really go to slowly, not screaming fast but not as slow as we've gone sometimes. Stuff starts there on the hour. Mentally my math isn't great but that is kind of cutting it close. And it always takes a few minutes to get shoes changed and her bulky and heavy stuff transfered out of my bag into her's.
So.
Well there's only one thing to do. Ride at the limit. Bang into the 55 after crossing crescent view and there's no rest. I'm already drooling on myself by the time we hit riverside center.
Buy the time we hit Amoco road (just before the causeway) i'm alternating between being just about ready to cry from the effort or puke, not sure which. I'm on the rivet turning those tiny little pedals will all the force I can muster. I'll admit, we were actually hauling pretty good. But, if I had to get off and walk right there I'd have fallen over.
with the hill coming up i dialed back a few watts or whatever metric of power you want to use and found just enough recovery to make it up the incline and dig back into it at the top. Yeah so it isn't anything as dramatic as Jonny Bold's win at the Tour of Catskills, but i surprised myself and was able to dig deep the whole ride in, i found the limit of legs and lungs and they were pretty well lined up. And it hurt like hell. But at the same time felt awesome.
Heck i even got out for a 20 minute trail run this morning. No back twinges, no calf pain, no hamstring pain. Kind of weird running pain free... but pretty cool.
Couple more weeks of running base with some more bike intensity tossed in there and the program should start to fall in place.
Definitely in a better physical state this year compared to last year this time.
I was just getting back from a week in Richmond, walking a little, riding not at all and dealing with a knee that wouldn't stop hurting. I'm not sure I'll be any faster/better at the Fall River Crit but I sort of hope so.
Still need to register for the CX races. I'm feeling the panic of new car payment cheap bastard mental lock down though. Should probably register at some point.
But.
Fears are greatly relieved. Well other than Vermont right now, not sure how they are staging, last year's verge points? Either way I'm screwed for getting a decent start there. Hell even the Crossresults races I'm not starting all that far up but hey, at least I know where I'm starting. Just have to get my ass registered before the deadline or before the field fills. Takes a bit of pressure off, but maybe too much pressure?
G-ride's already buying tires, ripping old tubbies off... i'm getting ready to start the season kind of the way I ended it, on clinchers. Nothing to glue up. Destroyed my Racing Ralph FMB, my 34 Fango is basically bald, but i have a pair of clinchers, which kind of sucks in the air pressure traction game but hey - I have a front and a read tubular wheel waiting for rubber... maybe something will happen mid September and I'll have some new rubber by G-ster or at least PVD.
Time to put the passat back tomorrow... i'm actually somewhat anxious about it.
fingers crossed it goes together and starts right up nice and smoothly.
heddwch
G
It was going to be on time and everything too.
But, I go to bring the tandem out and thunk, the rear tire has about 5 psi in it. WTF. Damn it.
Quick spin around shows nothing sticking out. Crap we have to leave like right now! Tire change time. Grab my SV17 out of the bag and (maybe it was an SV16 i don't remember). After checking the tire (man it is paper thin, not like my normal Marathon Plus) and the rim, I put an ounce or two of Doc Blue in the tube and get it all together.
Not too bad of a tire change. But then I get done, wash the Doc Blue juice off my hands any my passenger isn't quite ready to go (after walking out with the tire apart all ready to go helmet on and everything). We head out at 22 after the hour or a few minutes later than that. The day before we left at 10 after and got to the destination at 46 after and we didn't really go to slowly, not screaming fast but not as slow as we've gone sometimes. Stuff starts there on the hour. Mentally my math isn't great but that is kind of cutting it close. And it always takes a few minutes to get shoes changed and her bulky and heavy stuff transfered out of my bag into her's.
So.
Well there's only one thing to do. Ride at the limit. Bang into the 55 after crossing crescent view and there's no rest. I'm already drooling on myself by the time we hit riverside center.
Buy the time we hit Amoco road (just before the causeway) i'm alternating between being just about ready to cry from the effort or puke, not sure which. I'm on the rivet turning those tiny little pedals will all the force I can muster. I'll admit, we were actually hauling pretty good. But, if I had to get off and walk right there I'd have fallen over.
with the hill coming up i dialed back a few watts or whatever metric of power you want to use and found just enough recovery to make it up the incline and dig back into it at the top. Yeah so it isn't anything as dramatic as Jonny Bold's win at the Tour of Catskills, but i surprised myself and was able to dig deep the whole ride in, i found the limit of legs and lungs and they were pretty well lined up. And it hurt like hell. But at the same time felt awesome.
Heck i even got out for a 20 minute trail run this morning. No back twinges, no calf pain, no hamstring pain. Kind of weird running pain free... but pretty cool.
Couple more weeks of running base with some more bike intensity tossed in there and the program should start to fall in place.
Definitely in a better physical state this year compared to last year this time.
I was just getting back from a week in Richmond, walking a little, riding not at all and dealing with a knee that wouldn't stop hurting. I'm not sure I'll be any faster/better at the Fall River Crit but I sort of hope so.
Still need to register for the CX races. I'm feeling the panic of new car payment cheap bastard mental lock down though. Should probably register at some point.
But.
Fears are greatly relieved. Well other than Vermont right now, not sure how they are staging, last year's verge points? Either way I'm screwed for getting a decent start there. Hell even the Crossresults races I'm not starting all that far up but hey, at least I know where I'm starting. Just have to get my ass registered before the deadline or before the field fills. Takes a bit of pressure off, but maybe too much pressure?
G-ride's already buying tires, ripping old tubbies off... i'm getting ready to start the season kind of the way I ended it, on clinchers. Nothing to glue up. Destroyed my Racing Ralph FMB, my 34 Fango is basically bald, but i have a pair of clinchers, which kind of sucks in the air pressure traction game but hey - I have a front and a read tubular wheel waiting for rubber... maybe something will happen mid September and I'll have some new rubber by G-ster or at least PVD.
Time to put the passat back tomorrow... i'm actually somewhat anxious about it.
fingers crossed it goes together and starts right up nice and smoothly.
heddwch
G
Raise a pint
For Big Jonny. 4 years ago he got wacked and came back from the dead, well he wasn't really dead. Lucky he wasn't. And yeah - the main page is pretty much 100% work safe now.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
eyes cast down on the path of least resistance
That should strike a chord with some of my friends. Or at least get them to start singing "Farewell to Kings."
That popped on the iDiot device while running the trails this morning and I have been ruminating on it (well the last three hours i was able to put it out of my head and focus on Confocal Microscopy- anyway) since.
Old stuff but still sadly so full of truth. I remember reading a friend complaining about how negative all the news coverage is. All about what's killing you, what's bad, who's dead, who's going to jail, doom and gloom. Sure if you had a news station that only had positive stories, well i don't think they'll be on the air for very long. People want to hear how bad others are having it so they feel better about themselves. That or they want to hear about people who are doing way better than themselves so they either can aspire or feel okay that someone is doing fine. I dunno, people are complicated.
Going back to the lyrics it almost sounds like they are describing the Democrat's view of the Republican party. Full of hatred fear and lies.
Can't we find enough minds to lead us closer to the Heart?
I hope so.
The run this morning was good. A nice solid 20 minutes of running with about 5 min of cool down walking. Although in the humidity this morning I can't really say I was cooling down much outside. I even took a cold shower and was still sweating afterwards. Too much thermal mass I suppose. I didn't have the same snap or spring that I had during the whole run on Tuesday. But it wasn't so bad, not so slow. I did a few extra loops around to add time. Hamstrings were fine this morning, but my back was feeling sore.
Pain is moving from bottom up. Maybe by next week when I go out for a run I won't hurt anyway. I feel very strongly about getting a solid running base in for Cyclocross. Esp for the old frail dudes. Iron men like JONNY BOLD are basically genetically indestructible so probably they can get away w/o it, but man it make a huge difference for me. Esp post CX race. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want to minimize the soreness and pain post CX race to just the legs and cycling stuff, get some running base in.
Plus as FnF has pointed out in the past, running is a good way to get some aerobic stress on the system, esp if you are riding enough to be very efficient.
Another way to aerobically stress the system is to ride a damn tandem. That is really upping the stress score this week. Not just the running.
And yeah, after we stopped at the house to pick up the trail-a-bike, and were on our way to camp to pick up the youngest a commuter on a Felt with a Cliff bar sticker on the top tube (road bike) went past us at an intersection. Well. He passed just before the slight downhill stretch and i upped the tempo to stay about 30-40 feet behind him. Matched pace. Then he picked it up a bit and I was matching it. Not easily. But he wasn't working too hard, nor was he going slowly. And yeah, he kept looking back. Crossed the last road and he sprinted out of the intersection. Got a damn good gap on me too. But I told Kailey we're ramping it up. I had made note that this guy was in his big ring at the intersection, and he started downshifting post sprint and kept the cadence up there. With the big gap i decided to see if I can bring it down. And I did, brought it back to the same spot when K decided to ask me a question before we could really get close enough for the "kill" and I had to ease off to talk, and so I could hear her. But that was probably a good thing, it gave me a couple hundred yards to cool down before making the pick up.
The weather's been very weird this week. Basically every morning we've had good tailwind. That's so wrong it seems. I'm not going to complain but it is just weird. And heading home it is at most a crosswind. last night it was a cross tail wind. Really weird.
Sure beats fighting both the wind and the weight of that unwieldy beast of a bike.
Now that's funny. Well sort of, not really, but watching the drunken monkeys made me laugh. (found over at doucheblog)
"Car Up?" is great read. I personally hate it when people say "braking" in a race. I've gone over exactly why here. Car up is similar. Except. Around here on the smack down. Because one or two of the roads have no yellow painted lines, or if they do the road that they are dividing isn't wide enough for most cars and so, the rare car barreling down on the group sometimes gets called. But it only happens on narrow roads. Too much other f'n traffic.
But those M'F'ers on the bike path who pass w/o a heads up of "on your left" or something still bother me. Esp Monday. I was passing a runner and just as I'm pulling back over a dude passes very close (i'm on the tandem, and like a tractor trailer don't like little things darting out unexpectedly from my blind spot). No on your left, nothing. That night heading home from the pick up three more Dudes head down and "training" barreled past w/o any notification. That commuter on the Felt, same thing. Although i noticed him as we came to a stop before he passed me. People on the bike path are starting to bug me. I can't wait until the weather gets cold and shitty and all these people go inside and sit on their ass or find some spinning class to join.
ah well - at least I have the path to ride on and it certainly could be worse. The fact that only one or two people bug me a day isn't a bad sign. Gotta be positive.
heddwch
G
That popped on the iDiot device while running the trails this morning and I have been ruminating on it (well the last three hours i was able to put it out of my head and focus on Confocal Microscopy- anyway) since.
When they turn the pages of history
When these days have passed long ago
Will they read of us with sadness
For the seeds that we let grow?
We turned our gaze
From the castles in the distance
Eyes cast down
On the path of least resistance
Cities full of hatred, fear and lies
Withered hearts and cruel, tormented eyes
Scheming demons dressed in kingly guise
Beating down the multitude and
Scoffing at the wise
The hypocrites are slandering
The sacred halls of Truth
Ancient nobles showering
Their bitterness on youth
Can't we find the minds that made us strong?
Can't we learn to feel what's right
And what's wrong?
What's wrong?
Cities full of hatred, fear and lies
Withered hearts and cruel, tormented eyes
Scheming demons dressed in kingly guise
Beating down the multitude and
Scoffing at the wise
Can't we raise our eyes and make a start?
Can't we find the minds to lead us
Closer to the Heart?
Old stuff but still sadly so full of truth. I remember reading a friend complaining about how negative all the news coverage is. All about what's killing you, what's bad, who's dead, who's going to jail, doom and gloom. Sure if you had a news station that only had positive stories, well i don't think they'll be on the air for very long. People want to hear how bad others are having it so they feel better about themselves. That or they want to hear about people who are doing way better than themselves so they either can aspire or feel okay that someone is doing fine. I dunno, people are complicated.
Going back to the lyrics it almost sounds like they are describing the Democrat's view of the Republican party. Full of hatred fear and lies.
Can't we find enough minds to lead us closer to the Heart?
I hope so.
The run this morning was good. A nice solid 20 minutes of running with about 5 min of cool down walking. Although in the humidity this morning I can't really say I was cooling down much outside. I even took a cold shower and was still sweating afterwards. Too much thermal mass I suppose. I didn't have the same snap or spring that I had during the whole run on Tuesday. But it wasn't so bad, not so slow. I did a few extra loops around to add time. Hamstrings were fine this morning, but my back was feeling sore.
Pain is moving from bottom up. Maybe by next week when I go out for a run I won't hurt anyway. I feel very strongly about getting a solid running base in for Cyclocross. Esp for the old frail dudes. Iron men like JONNY BOLD are basically genetically indestructible so probably they can get away w/o it, but man it make a huge difference for me. Esp post CX race. I've said it before and I'll say it again, if you want to minimize the soreness and pain post CX race to just the legs and cycling stuff, get some running base in.
Plus as FnF has pointed out in the past, running is a good way to get some aerobic stress on the system, esp if you are riding enough to be very efficient.
Another way to aerobically stress the system is to ride a damn tandem. That is really upping the stress score this week. Not just the running.
And yeah, after we stopped at the house to pick up the trail-a-bike, and were on our way to camp to pick up the youngest a commuter on a Felt with a Cliff bar sticker on the top tube (road bike) went past us at an intersection. Well. He passed just before the slight downhill stretch and i upped the tempo to stay about 30-40 feet behind him. Matched pace. Then he picked it up a bit and I was matching it. Not easily. But he wasn't working too hard, nor was he going slowly. And yeah, he kept looking back. Crossed the last road and he sprinted out of the intersection. Got a damn good gap on me too. But I told Kailey we're ramping it up. I had made note that this guy was in his big ring at the intersection, and he started downshifting post sprint and kept the cadence up there. With the big gap i decided to see if I can bring it down. And I did, brought it back to the same spot when K decided to ask me a question before we could really get close enough for the "kill" and I had to ease off to talk, and so I could hear her. But that was probably a good thing, it gave me a couple hundred yards to cool down before making the pick up.
The weather's been very weird this week. Basically every morning we've had good tailwind. That's so wrong it seems. I'm not going to complain but it is just weird. And heading home it is at most a crosswind. last night it was a cross tail wind. Really weird.
Sure beats fighting both the wind and the weight of that unwieldy beast of a bike.
Now that's funny. Well sort of, not really, but watching the drunken monkeys made me laugh. (found over at doucheblog)
"Car Up?" is great read. I personally hate it when people say "braking" in a race. I've gone over exactly why here. Car up is similar. Except. Around here on the smack down. Because one or two of the roads have no yellow painted lines, or if they do the road that they are dividing isn't wide enough for most cars and so, the rare car barreling down on the group sometimes gets called. But it only happens on narrow roads. Too much other f'n traffic.
But those M'F'ers on the bike path who pass w/o a heads up of "on your left" or something still bother me. Esp Monday. I was passing a runner and just as I'm pulling back over a dude passes very close (i'm on the tandem, and like a tractor trailer don't like little things darting out unexpectedly from my blind spot). No on your left, nothing. That night heading home from the pick up three more Dudes head down and "training" barreled past w/o any notification. That commuter on the Felt, same thing. Although i noticed him as we came to a stop before he passed me. People on the bike path are starting to bug me. I can't wait until the weather gets cold and shitty and all these people go inside and sit on their ass or find some spinning class to join.
ah well - at least I have the path to ride on and it certainly could be worse. The fact that only one or two people bug me a day isn't a bad sign. Gotta be positive.
heddwch
G
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
got caught by...
fatigue this morning. Lucy woke me up rather confused, wondering why it took so much to get me out of bed so late this morning. Worn out.
This tandem thing plus the running and the long ride sunday and the working on the car/farm saturday... has caught up with me. Pooped.
Opted to skip the run today. I had a training session to give down at the remote facility and I'm not going to ride the tandem down the hill through this city, besides there isn't any good place to park it down there.
So I thought I might walk down and take the bus back. That was the plan. Get a little bit of a walk to move those muscles a bit.
Leaving this morning was not drama free, but by the time we go to where my daughter was going to spend the day her mood had changed 180° and it was great. I'm going to credit the bike ride, just because. She's still not much help and it is a major amount of watts to haul that beast up the little rises.
Wound up outside my door here and I went to pull out my ID to swipe the door open. Shit. Not there. Damn. I walk around through the big entrance - stuff the tandem in the elevator and head to my office. Maybe I left it on my desk in my haste to leave last night.
Nope.
Shit.
Get through a few things and the next thing i know I have not much time to get to the other location, which would be fine if i was riding. So I head out thinking, "I'll just take the shuttle." I get outside, run into Turdowski. I guess Dave Kellogg showed up at the Smack Down and with a few others really pushed the pace and made everyone hurt. And I start heading over to the shuttle stop. And realize.
They've gotten really strict about the rider policy. you HAVE to have an id now. I suppose i could have talked my way on the shuttle but I didn't want to wait around for one and started hoofing it.
Weather hadn't gotten to bad yet. humid but not so hot. The return trip up the hill sucked a bit. But, I got a good long bit of walking in to substitute for the missed run. equivalent? not quite, but I'll take it.
Firming up plans for kids cross camp on the 18th of august. target age 8-12 with some activities for the younger siblings who all happen to be ~5. drop me a note if you're interested... totally informal - parent needs to be present kind of stuff, just some parents getting together with kids - structured day but not anything formal call it a play-date more than anything else.
I guess i gotta get my ass in gear and get that Bontrager crossified.
$147 billion is a lot. It would be nice if people figured out how slim down and save this country some cash.
One thing - thinking about overweight and what not - Sunday i actually felt skinny on the bike. Just sort of an odd realization, maybe I am, maybe I am not much different but that mental feeling sort of clicked and felt good. I know there isn't less of me to haul around but I think maybe i've moved some of that mass below the waist line into the engine room.
We'll see. G'ster is staging with Crossresults points this year. I'm inside the 400s but still 2 points behind G-ride despite having him pop up as my NEW victim. Muahahahah. Yeah. Carl Crash Ring has the distinction of being the only one who is both a victim and a nemesis. But that is last year. There's bound to be some differences.
Just taking a wild guess, I don't think there's much of a chance in hell that I'll be finishing in front of Steve Lehmann much, unless he burns out and gets slow for CX season. Oh CX season - here it comes. faster than ever this year - and I think i'm behind the 8 ball again. At least I'm struggling to get the car running in August instead of september. hopefully it will start up and work just fine once the new bits are installed...
need to get that behind me - then turn to CX...
heddwch
G
This tandem thing plus the running and the long ride sunday and the working on the car/farm saturday... has caught up with me. Pooped.
Opted to skip the run today. I had a training session to give down at the remote facility and I'm not going to ride the tandem down the hill through this city, besides there isn't any good place to park it down there.
So I thought I might walk down and take the bus back. That was the plan. Get a little bit of a walk to move those muscles a bit.
Leaving this morning was not drama free, but by the time we go to where my daughter was going to spend the day her mood had changed 180° and it was great. I'm going to credit the bike ride, just because. She's still not much help and it is a major amount of watts to haul that beast up the little rises.
Wound up outside my door here and I went to pull out my ID to swipe the door open. Shit. Not there. Damn. I walk around through the big entrance - stuff the tandem in the elevator and head to my office. Maybe I left it on my desk in my haste to leave last night.
Nope.
Shit.
Get through a few things and the next thing i know I have not much time to get to the other location, which would be fine if i was riding. So I head out thinking, "I'll just take the shuttle." I get outside, run into Turdowski. I guess Dave Kellogg showed up at the Smack Down and with a few others really pushed the pace and made everyone hurt. And I start heading over to the shuttle stop. And realize.
They've gotten really strict about the rider policy. you HAVE to have an id now. I suppose i could have talked my way on the shuttle but I didn't want to wait around for one and started hoofing it.
Weather hadn't gotten to bad yet. humid but not so hot. The return trip up the hill sucked a bit. But, I got a good long bit of walking in to substitute for the missed run. equivalent? not quite, but I'll take it.
Firming up plans for kids cross camp on the 18th of august. target age 8-12 with some activities for the younger siblings who all happen to be ~5. drop me a note if you're interested... totally informal - parent needs to be present kind of stuff, just some parents getting together with kids - structured day but not anything formal call it a play-date more than anything else.
I guess i gotta get my ass in gear and get that Bontrager crossified.
$147 billion is a lot. It would be nice if people figured out how slim down and save this country some cash.
One thing - thinking about overweight and what not - Sunday i actually felt skinny on the bike. Just sort of an odd realization, maybe I am, maybe I am not much different but that mental feeling sort of clicked and felt good. I know there isn't less of me to haul around but I think maybe i've moved some of that mass below the waist line into the engine room.
We'll see. G'ster is staging with Crossresults points this year. I'm inside the 400s but still 2 points behind G-ride despite having him pop up as my NEW victim. Muahahahah. Yeah. Carl Crash Ring has the distinction of being the only one who is both a victim and a nemesis. But that is last year. There's bound to be some differences.
Just taking a wild guess, I don't think there's much of a chance in hell that I'll be finishing in front of Steve Lehmann much, unless he burns out and gets slow for CX season. Oh CX season - here it comes. faster than ever this year - and I think i'm behind the 8 ball again. At least I'm struggling to get the car running in August instead of september. hopefully it will start up and work just fine once the new bits are installed...
need to get that behind me - then turn to CX...
heddwch
G
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
there was a song
in my head when I woke up. But man i can't remember it now. woke up and headed out fo a short little run. the bit of trails with the dog yesterday had me thinking about trail running and XC. Last time I was really running cross country was high school. I was super skinny (Keith Kelly skinny) and it was fun. Except my knees weren't liking it and people just kept giving me heavier and "more supportive" shoes to run in (counter productive IMHO in hind sight) and I sold my Mistral Sailboard and bought a '88 Raleigh chill and started riding for training, and I got faster. Never super fast. Fast enough to make varsity my senior year (nerd school, lots of fast runners).
SO this morning i grabbed the idiot device/iPod and cued up the song before Trees on Chronicles and started running. It takes about 90 seconds of running to get to the first bit of trail I can get on, and it was pretty cool. Not so bad, and then Trees came on, and yeah I'm an old dude who likes certain old bands, and the vibes flowed through and I picked up the pace. And elevated it a bit more. Flying around the corners, HR finally high and at a good threshold (not 'threshold' but... nevermind). It felt AWESOME.
I was striding out and it felt great. Timed it out and I got about 15 minutes of trail running and i ended with a nice 5 minute cillax walk to head back.
Then of course it was load up the tandem and power into the city. We talked about different bits, the wind, the flags I use to tell the direction of the wind, we saw egrets, swans, and other birds. We stopped along the wash bridge to check out a swan pair and a pair of immature swans. Absolutely fabulous ride in.
But man. Hauling that thing up hill is not really all that easy, esp w/o much stoker help. But at least we aren't dragging the trailer this time.
My hamstrings were pretty tight again but not nearly as bad as yesterday. They are slowly coming around, tired though. Not sure if I take the morning off and make a big batch of pancakes or go out for the "planned" run in the morning. We'll see. I passed on the smack down tonight. My wife really wanted to ride in today, and I couldn't honestly tell her that I wanted to ride the smack down more than she wanted to commute on the bike, so i happily conceded to not ride with the team. It isn't on my coaches's plan. Oh and btw my coach is an idiot. Anyone who goes on a 73 mile ride with ONE f'n waterbottle is an idiot. Or who eats lunch at 11:30 and then nothing until he heads out on a 35-40 mile smack down ride at 5pm. Total idiot. Something else. Oh yeah.
It took me until this week to realize that I might not always have time to eat breakfast in the morning but instead of skipping it or going out to grab a breakfast burrito once I got in that I could make a breakfast sandwich at home and take it to work and eat it there. Yeah. My coach might be brilliant but he's still a f'n idiot. That and there is some truth to what Dr Flat's A lot said. Been thinking about that too.
Anyway.
Ordered bits for the wagon. Got a slightly stronger clutch than stock so I can put the injectors I have laying around in there and swap out the ECU for one that is stage 2 chipped... if i'm going to be the only one driving this, well, might as well jack the crap out of the power, new clutch, head gasket, front suspension... esp if it is just me driving. Although - with luck (crossing fingers and toes) i'll be bringing my oldest to the races with me so it will at least have to get us there and back. We'll see though. Sounds like i might have a few longer trips solo before i have a passenger.... we'll see what happens though.
time to make some food...
heddwch
G
SO this morning i grabbed the idiot device/iPod and cued up the song before Trees on Chronicles and started running. It takes about 90 seconds of running to get to the first bit of trail I can get on, and it was pretty cool. Not so bad, and then Trees came on, and yeah I'm an old dude who likes certain old bands, and the vibes flowed through and I picked up the pace. And elevated it a bit more. Flying around the corners, HR finally high and at a good threshold (not 'threshold' but... nevermind). It felt AWESOME.
I was striding out and it felt great. Timed it out and I got about 15 minutes of trail running and i ended with a nice 5 minute cillax walk to head back.
Then of course it was load up the tandem and power into the city. We talked about different bits, the wind, the flags I use to tell the direction of the wind, we saw egrets, swans, and other birds. We stopped along the wash bridge to check out a swan pair and a pair of immature swans. Absolutely fabulous ride in.
But man. Hauling that thing up hill is not really all that easy, esp w/o much stoker help. But at least we aren't dragging the trailer this time.
My hamstrings were pretty tight again but not nearly as bad as yesterday. They are slowly coming around, tired though. Not sure if I take the morning off and make a big batch of pancakes or go out for the "planned" run in the morning. We'll see. I passed on the smack down tonight. My wife really wanted to ride in today, and I couldn't honestly tell her that I wanted to ride the smack down more than she wanted to commute on the bike, so i happily conceded to not ride with the team. It isn't on my coaches's plan. Oh and btw my coach is an idiot. Anyone who goes on a 73 mile ride with ONE f'n waterbottle is an idiot. Or who eats lunch at 11:30 and then nothing until he heads out on a 35-40 mile smack down ride at 5pm. Total idiot. Something else. Oh yeah.
It took me until this week to realize that I might not always have time to eat breakfast in the morning but instead of skipping it or going out to grab a breakfast burrito once I got in that I could make a breakfast sandwich at home and take it to work and eat it there. Yeah. My coach might be brilliant but he's still a f'n idiot. That and there is some truth to what Dr Flat's A lot said. Been thinking about that too.
Anyway.
Ordered bits for the wagon. Got a slightly stronger clutch than stock so I can put the injectors I have laying around in there and swap out the ECU for one that is stage 2 chipped... if i'm going to be the only one driving this, well, might as well jack the crap out of the power, new clutch, head gasket, front suspension... esp if it is just me driving. Although - with luck (crossing fingers and toes) i'll be bringing my oldest to the races with me so it will at least have to get us there and back. We'll see though. Sounds like i might have a few longer trips solo before i have a passenger.... we'll see what happens though.
time to make some food...
heddwch
G
Monday, August 02, 2010
Killah Slaw
So I got this giant head of cabbage at the farmers market (a week and a half ago) and it is time to make the damn thing start disappearing.
I really actually am not a big fan of the mayo based slaws. Really don't like em.
So I decided to go with an "asian" flavor. Japanese maybe to be specific.
Ingredients:
2 pounds of shredded Cabbage (yes I weighed it for yall)
2 large carrots grated
1/2 med white onion sliced up thin
Sauce:
1/4 cup of equal parts seasoned organic rice vinegar and apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon of annies horseradish mustard
1 tablespoon of 365 yellow mustard
1 tablespoon of plain whole milk yogurt (my concession to the mayo-ish white stuff)
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 tablespoon of microplaned ginger
mixed that all up.
then drizzled in a couple table spoons of Toasted sesame oil
and then about 2-3 times as much Extra virgin olive oil
oh and a splash of Shoyu (maybe a teaspoon).
Mixed that sauce well - and poured it over the other stuff in a big glass bowl. Toss completely, let stand.
And try to keep your kids out of the bowl so they are still hungry when dinner rolls around.
Oh and it will be served along side some sweet potato oven fries (yeah - i'm cheating and buying something pre-packaged, but it is almost the only exception around here other than canned beans, i find that the canned beans are just way easier and better tasting - and despite the higher price point over the dried beans they are still pretty inexpensive) and some hamburgers made from the 90% lean whole foods ground beef that was on sale on sunday...
It is the easy night. Waiting for the final member of the crew to get home so I'm stealing a few minutes to post this recipe up. Mostly so I remember it, because it is DAMN good.
Best thing is. There is actually a good bit of excess dressing on the slaw. So I'll let it drain a serve from the top. When we're done with the meal tonight I'll chop up some more of the cabbage that I have left (it was a 5 pound head of cabbage for $3) and add it to the bowl and keep it going for the week. Adding it to lunches and the other meals.
eat well and heddwch
G
******** edit **********
so i finished writing this up and went in and the bowl was 1/2 empty. Between the settling of the cabbage and the munch-kins eating it, well, i added another 1/2 pound of shredded cabbage to the mix. And it was good.
I really actually am not a big fan of the mayo based slaws. Really don't like em.
So I decided to go with an "asian" flavor. Japanese maybe to be specific.
Ingredients:
2 pounds of shredded Cabbage (yes I weighed it for yall)
2 large carrots grated
1/2 med white onion sliced up thin
Sauce:
1/4 cup of equal parts seasoned organic rice vinegar and apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon of annies horseradish mustard
1 tablespoon of 365 yellow mustard
1 tablespoon of plain whole milk yogurt (my concession to the mayo-ish white stuff)
1/2 teaspoon celery seed
1 tablespoon of microplaned ginger
mixed that all up.
then drizzled in a couple table spoons of Toasted sesame oil
and then about 2-3 times as much Extra virgin olive oil
oh and a splash of Shoyu (maybe a teaspoon).
Mixed that sauce well - and poured it over the other stuff in a big glass bowl. Toss completely, let stand.
And try to keep your kids out of the bowl so they are still hungry when dinner rolls around.
Oh and it will be served along side some sweet potato oven fries (yeah - i'm cheating and buying something pre-packaged, but it is almost the only exception around here other than canned beans, i find that the canned beans are just way easier and better tasting - and despite the higher price point over the dried beans they are still pretty inexpensive) and some hamburgers made from the 90% lean whole foods ground beef that was on sale on sunday...
It is the easy night. Waiting for the final member of the crew to get home so I'm stealing a few minutes to post this recipe up. Mostly so I remember it, because it is DAMN good.
Best thing is. There is actually a good bit of excess dressing on the slaw. So I'll let it drain a serve from the top. When we're done with the meal tonight I'll chop up some more of the cabbage that I have left (it was a 5 pound head of cabbage for $3) and add it to the bowl and keep it going for the week. Adding it to lunches and the other meals.
eat well and heddwch
G
******** edit **********
so i finished writing this up and went in and the bowl was 1/2 empty. Between the settling of the cabbage and the munch-kins eating it, well, i added another 1/2 pound of shredded cabbage to the mix. And it was good.
mad for madfiber
at one point on sunday's ride i was sucking some major wheel thinking that it would be awesome to have a set or two of those MadFiber wheels. no weight limits, aero, strong, fast, light...
Until a few moments ago when i pulled up that page to link (had to dig through bike hugger's archives to find it) I didn't know that the set cost $2600. that's kind of a lot of money.
Sort of.
I guess when you factor in everything else and hopefully how long they will last. Heck factor a four year warranty and lets see that is a mere $650/year. Certainly plenty of people spend that much on wheels/equipment every year. Even has a damage replacement policy.
That and the pair of them weigh only 345 grams more than ONE of my commuter tires. That's pretty sweet right there.
Heck and at that price it makes Zinn's cranks seem affordable. Something else I would also love to get a hold of.
Until a few moments ago when i pulled up that page to link (had to dig through bike hugger's archives to find it) I didn't know that the set cost $2600. that's kind of a lot of money.
Sort of.
I guess when you factor in everything else and hopefully how long they will last. Heck factor a four year warranty and lets see that is a mere $650/year. Certainly plenty of people spend that much on wheels/equipment every year. Even has a damage replacement policy.
That and the pair of them weigh only 345 grams more than ONE of my commuter tires. That's pretty sweet right there.
Heck and at that price it makes Zinn's cranks seem affordable. Something else I would also love to get a hold of.
when the morning comes
I woke up this morning singing this song in my head, at 4:15am:
When the morning comes...
So what happened this weekend? When the morning came the girls loaded up in the new Minivan, picked up a handful of friends and one extra parent and headed up to Six Flags (MORE FUN) for the day. Me? I sent them off, dressed up in my grungiest clothes and took the transmission off. My brother came over with a monster floor jack for some more height and we went at it. Got it off in couple hours, most all of that time was spend messing with the drive shaft on the passenger side. Needed clearance to pull the flange out so the transmission would come out. No matter what it wasn't coming off it seemed. So, then we had the bright idea - lets pull the transmission off part way then we can get the flange enough space to pull out. Sure enough.
Pulled the motor mount hanger that bolts to the tranny off and then it tipped right out. not too bad. A light lighter than I was expecting. The clutch looks okay. Plenty of material left but the whole bell housing is full of brown powdery dust. The clutch is slipping and the dust is evidence of it. The grooves are actually thinner than I'd like and possibly increased surface area has lowered the clamping force causing the slippage. Or the pressure plate is getting weaker. Anyway it is getting replaced.
Once we got it all taken apart and tools picked up we had a celebratory Sea Hag IPA and headed to the farm for some landscaping. Stopped for lunch and went out and picked up some Pizza and I had a pint of Allagash Black. Oh man that was good. Went back to the farm and my brother and stanley went to work clearing out one of the garages and I somehow wound up taking a nap on the hammock. It was really nice. Great day.
No riding. No thoughts of riding on Saturday.
Girls finally got home around 11;30pm. I woke up nice and late sunday morning (around 6:00am) and rolled down stairs with lucy - fed her and let her out and then got kitted up for a ride.
Dr, Flats a lot had mentioned wanting to do something like 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours, so I packed one water bottle of sports drink and no food. Didn't eat anything before leaving. I did have a big cup of green tea and a bunch of water. And with the temps below 60 degrees I put on a sleeveless base layer under the short sleeve jersey.
Got up to the fourbucks in Wayland square and there's Nathan and Turdowski. Turdowski suggests I go get a coffee so I'll be talking the whole ride. Not only did i NOT bring food, or more than one water bottle, I haven't replenished my slurpee money in the seat bag. (slurpee money = michigan thing, i might explain it some other time, should be self explanatory but the story has specifics, and one specific 7-11). I mentioned, "no cash." and he hands me two one dollar bills, "go get a coffee."
I love that my friends are enablers. Working to get me back on the sauce.
Now the only problem is, what can you buy at a Fourbuxs for two dollars? Well not much. I went with an Iced Coffee. 12oz is on the board for $1.95. And the total rings up to $2.11. The cute young short blonde gal at the register wasn't sure what to do but the manager looking gal who was pouring my coffee said don't worry about it.
sitting out on the patio waiting for Dr. Flats. He rolls up and we chat for a few more minutes and then roll out.
Conversational for a while, catching up a bit. Then we turn north on Broadway and I pull into the lead across the narrow bridge. And they fall into a single line and we stop talking.
On a group ride when everyone stops talking w/in a few miles, that's never a good sign. I was well warmed up after my 23 minute sprint from home to the Fourbux, and pushed the pace coming into the State Line sprint on 152. Dr Flats took off about 500 meters before the line and I just rode tempo. Nathan and Turdowski elected to sit on my wheel and we let the Doc fly up the road uncontested.
And then we kept motoring.
Up to the TT course. Tremont or bust. Everytime Nathan went to the front he lifted the pace a bit. And for the first half of the ride it seemed he was sitting on my wheel. So when I'd pull off after a long hard pull i was at my limit trying to stay on Dr Flat's wheel for about 5-10 minutes.
We just kept pushing the pace (or so it felt to me) into the wind all the way out. Just before crossing over 24 there was a nice stretch, maybe a mile or two, of ground up asphalt. You know that cheese grater road? Yeah. Turdowski and Nathan (two 150 pounders) freaked. Me and Dr Flats (he's 200+ as well) thought otherwise. I just started drilling it over the "cobbles" bouncing and floating and flying over that shit. So much fun. Me and the doc came over 24 and turned right, and looked back and they weren't anywhere to be seen. so we turned around and waited, and they eventually came back complaining about buzzing and vibration. Big guys can motor over that cobble like rough surface pretty well.
We hit a long downhill run and Dr was up front just drilling it. I'm tucked into his wheel and a couple miles of gradual down hill (my distances are all messed up - i don't know for sure how long - but it was a good while and fun).
Me and my one waterbottle, no food and we're on a ride that will get me about 75 miles for the morning. Dr Flats at one point stuck a gel in my pocket. I pulled it out wondering what the flavor would be, and OMG it was RAZZ. I LOOOOVE that Cliff Bar Razz flavor. SOOO GOOD. Sucked it down and wow that was awesome.
I started dying a bit on the way back in. Lack of food, water or just being worn out, pick one or all, I was getting gapped off on the little rises. Oh well. These guys were nice enough to wait up a bit until we hit seekonk and started winding down.
A couple data points, one from Dr Flats-a-Lot (with power). But it doesn't include my jaunt up and down the bike path.
Turdowski split off with me and headed down the path. I offered to buy him some Ice Cream at the Dairy Bee for buying me the coffee, but we had to swing by the house. His data points are here (no power). Those more closely resemble my ride time. But Mark's pretty close to my weight so his power numbers are a decently similar, even with the equipment differences. You can see his state line sprint there at 1300 watts. Oh and Dr Flat's Comments over on FB made me chuckle, "Poor GeWilli, getting all beat up on...not. More than once we were pulling 400 watts with him in front. Don't listen to him, he just wants sympathy." See, I had no idea i was dragging him along and he's sitting in my draft making 400 watts. Stuff I don't need to know.
So heading to the path, make it to the house, i downed a Coconut water (my daughter thought it would be good in her lunch, tried it and couldn't finish it, so I've got a few left to burn through) and man it was awesome, i grabbed a twenty and we headed back up to the Dairy Bee for Ice Cream.
We get there, 11:08 (i checked) and they guy said they aren't open until 11:30, the soft serve machines aren't cooled down yet... BUT, if we wanted a shake or hard serve he'd be happy to set us up.
That ice cream was soooo good.
He headed north, i headed back home and got the rest of the sunday sorted out for the up coming week.
When the morning came around this morning, I tried to fall back asleep but that wasn't working and after a good while of laying awake I got up and laced up the shoes and grabbed lucy's leash and we went for a 15-20 minute trail run with about 5 minutes of a cool down walk afterwards.
I hit the trails because I couldn't stand the thought of plodding along the path again. One week of running on it (not even that - only a couple days) last week and it already isn't fun. But we hit the trails there by Skinny's CX course (and Joey B's too) and lucy and I ran around, did the loop and it felt awesome.
My hamstrings were on fire yesterday but my calves were fine. This morning the calves were no issue and the hamstrings started off sore but they felt much better after a few minutes and right now? not so bad.
The tandem and the mini freak size 170 mm cranks on it were a pain going up the hills but it wasn't so bad. It reminded me that the Paramount of mine had 170mm cranks on it when I bought it. My first big upgrade for that bike was going to 177.5mm Mavic cranks (1991 iirc) and I was amazed easy it was to go up hill. There was on hill in Gig Harbor that I tried with the short cranks that I literally had to turn around and go a different way. With the longer cranks the same hill wasn't a problem. But now i guess i'm stronger than I was then because I can haul this tandem up the grades with only 170s.
All over the place today, yeah. Oh well.
I'm going to try and stick with this plan that my coach "outlined." There is some significant debate as to the wisdom of running 4 days in a row. But then the 3 days not running isn't so bad. I just need to get out for another sunday 3 hour ride next week.
heck I suppose I should check for a few races too, see what is on the calendar. Going to miss D2R2, 24HOGG and probably Mt ATT. Going to skip Tokeneke too.
That leaves Fall River Seafood crit. I hope they run it opposite of last year with the shorter steeper hill as the uphill. Would make it more mentally competitive for me.
Also thinking about doing a day or two girls CX camp sometime between the 16th and 20th of August. My daughter has been bugging me about it, really wants to do it. VCB expressed more than just a passing interest in the idea way back in May or sometime. I don't know if there are any of my friends with 8-12 year old daughters that want to come down to RI for the day to get some girls together to play with barriers, dismounts, remounts, turns and what not. I've got a nice little course (afore-mentioned) and two sets of PVC barriers.
Okay time to order a few bits for the old rusty Passat so i can have a vehicle to drive when CX season gets here.
heddwch
G
When the morning comes...
So what happened this weekend? When the morning came the girls loaded up in the new Minivan, picked up a handful of friends and one extra parent and headed up to Six Flags (MORE FUN) for the day. Me? I sent them off, dressed up in my grungiest clothes and took the transmission off. My brother came over with a monster floor jack for some more height and we went at it. Got it off in couple hours, most all of that time was spend messing with the drive shaft on the passenger side. Needed clearance to pull the flange out so the transmission would come out. No matter what it wasn't coming off it seemed. So, then we had the bright idea - lets pull the transmission off part way then we can get the flange enough space to pull out. Sure enough.
Pulled the motor mount hanger that bolts to the tranny off and then it tipped right out. not too bad. A light lighter than I was expecting. The clutch looks okay. Plenty of material left but the whole bell housing is full of brown powdery dust. The clutch is slipping and the dust is evidence of it. The grooves are actually thinner than I'd like and possibly increased surface area has lowered the clamping force causing the slippage. Or the pressure plate is getting weaker. Anyway it is getting replaced.
Once we got it all taken apart and tools picked up we had a celebratory Sea Hag IPA and headed to the farm for some landscaping. Stopped for lunch and went out and picked up some Pizza and I had a pint of Allagash Black. Oh man that was good. Went back to the farm and my brother and stanley went to work clearing out one of the garages and I somehow wound up taking a nap on the hammock. It was really nice. Great day.
No riding. No thoughts of riding on Saturday.
Girls finally got home around 11;30pm. I woke up nice and late sunday morning (around 6:00am) and rolled down stairs with lucy - fed her and let her out and then got kitted up for a ride.
Dr, Flats a lot had mentioned wanting to do something like 90 minutes, maybe 2 hours, so I packed one water bottle of sports drink and no food. Didn't eat anything before leaving. I did have a big cup of green tea and a bunch of water. And with the temps below 60 degrees I put on a sleeveless base layer under the short sleeve jersey.
Got up to the fourbucks in Wayland square and there's Nathan and Turdowski. Turdowski suggests I go get a coffee so I'll be talking the whole ride. Not only did i NOT bring food, or more than one water bottle, I haven't replenished my slurpee money in the seat bag. (slurpee money = michigan thing, i might explain it some other time, should be self explanatory but the story has specifics, and one specific 7-11). I mentioned, "no cash." and he hands me two one dollar bills, "go get a coffee."
I love that my friends are enablers. Working to get me back on the sauce.
Now the only problem is, what can you buy at a Fourbuxs for two dollars? Well not much. I went with an Iced Coffee. 12oz is on the board for $1.95. And the total rings up to $2.11. The cute young short blonde gal at the register wasn't sure what to do but the manager looking gal who was pouring my coffee said don't worry about it.
sitting out on the patio waiting for Dr. Flats. He rolls up and we chat for a few more minutes and then roll out.
Conversational for a while, catching up a bit. Then we turn north on Broadway and I pull into the lead across the narrow bridge. And they fall into a single line and we stop talking.
On a group ride when everyone stops talking w/in a few miles, that's never a good sign. I was well warmed up after my 23 minute sprint from home to the Fourbux, and pushed the pace coming into the State Line sprint on 152. Dr Flats took off about 500 meters before the line and I just rode tempo. Nathan and Turdowski elected to sit on my wheel and we let the Doc fly up the road uncontested.
And then we kept motoring.
Up to the TT course. Tremont or bust. Everytime Nathan went to the front he lifted the pace a bit. And for the first half of the ride it seemed he was sitting on my wheel. So when I'd pull off after a long hard pull i was at my limit trying to stay on Dr Flat's wheel for about 5-10 minutes.
We just kept pushing the pace (or so it felt to me) into the wind all the way out. Just before crossing over 24 there was a nice stretch, maybe a mile or two, of ground up asphalt. You know that cheese grater road? Yeah. Turdowski and Nathan (two 150 pounders) freaked. Me and Dr Flats (he's 200+ as well) thought otherwise. I just started drilling it over the "cobbles" bouncing and floating and flying over that shit. So much fun. Me and the doc came over 24 and turned right, and looked back and they weren't anywhere to be seen. so we turned around and waited, and they eventually came back complaining about buzzing and vibration. Big guys can motor over that cobble like rough surface pretty well.
We hit a long downhill run and Dr was up front just drilling it. I'm tucked into his wheel and a couple miles of gradual down hill (my distances are all messed up - i don't know for sure how long - but it was a good while and fun).
Me and my one waterbottle, no food and we're on a ride that will get me about 75 miles for the morning. Dr Flats at one point stuck a gel in my pocket. I pulled it out wondering what the flavor would be, and OMG it was RAZZ. I LOOOOVE that Cliff Bar Razz flavor. SOOO GOOD. Sucked it down and wow that was awesome.
I started dying a bit on the way back in. Lack of food, water or just being worn out, pick one or all, I was getting gapped off on the little rises. Oh well. These guys were nice enough to wait up a bit until we hit seekonk and started winding down.
A couple data points, one from Dr Flats-a-Lot (with power). But it doesn't include my jaunt up and down the bike path.
Turdowski split off with me and headed down the path. I offered to buy him some Ice Cream at the Dairy Bee for buying me the coffee, but we had to swing by the house. His data points are here (no power). Those more closely resemble my ride time. But Mark's pretty close to my weight so his power numbers are a decently similar, even with the equipment differences. You can see his state line sprint there at 1300 watts. Oh and Dr Flat's Comments over on FB made me chuckle, "Poor GeWilli, getting all beat up on...not. More than once we were pulling 400 watts with him in front. Don't listen to him, he just wants sympathy." See, I had no idea i was dragging him along and he's sitting in my draft making 400 watts. Stuff I don't need to know.
So heading to the path, make it to the house, i downed a Coconut water (my daughter thought it would be good in her lunch, tried it and couldn't finish it, so I've got a few left to burn through) and man it was awesome, i grabbed a twenty and we headed back up to the Dairy Bee for Ice Cream.
We get there, 11:08 (i checked) and they guy said they aren't open until 11:30, the soft serve machines aren't cooled down yet... BUT, if we wanted a shake or hard serve he'd be happy to set us up.
That ice cream was soooo good.
He headed north, i headed back home and got the rest of the sunday sorted out for the up coming week.
When the morning came around this morning, I tried to fall back asleep but that wasn't working and after a good while of laying awake I got up and laced up the shoes and grabbed lucy's leash and we went for a 15-20 minute trail run with about 5 minutes of a cool down walk afterwards.
I hit the trails because I couldn't stand the thought of plodding along the path again. One week of running on it (not even that - only a couple days) last week and it already isn't fun. But we hit the trails there by Skinny's CX course (and Joey B's too) and lucy and I ran around, did the loop and it felt awesome.
My hamstrings were on fire yesterday but my calves were fine. This morning the calves were no issue and the hamstrings started off sore but they felt much better after a few minutes and right now? not so bad.
The tandem and the mini freak size 170 mm cranks on it were a pain going up the hills but it wasn't so bad. It reminded me that the Paramount of mine had 170mm cranks on it when I bought it. My first big upgrade for that bike was going to 177.5mm Mavic cranks (1991 iirc) and I was amazed easy it was to go up hill. There was on hill in Gig Harbor that I tried with the short cranks that I literally had to turn around and go a different way. With the longer cranks the same hill wasn't a problem. But now i guess i'm stronger than I was then because I can haul this tandem up the grades with only 170s.
All over the place today, yeah. Oh well.
I'm going to try and stick with this plan that my coach "outlined." There is some significant debate as to the wisdom of running 4 days in a row. But then the 3 days not running isn't so bad. I just need to get out for another sunday 3 hour ride next week.
heck I suppose I should check for a few races too, see what is on the calendar. Going to miss D2R2, 24HOGG and probably Mt ATT. Going to skip Tokeneke too.
That leaves Fall River Seafood crit. I hope they run it opposite of last year with the shorter steeper hill as the uphill. Would make it more mentally competitive for me.
Also thinking about doing a day or two girls CX camp sometime between the 16th and 20th of August. My daughter has been bugging me about it, really wants to do it. VCB expressed more than just a passing interest in the idea way back in May or sometime. I don't know if there are any of my friends with 8-12 year old daughters that want to come down to RI for the day to get some girls together to play with barriers, dismounts, remounts, turns and what not. I've got a nice little course (afore-mentioned) and two sets of PVC barriers.
Okay time to order a few bits for the old rusty Passat so i can have a vehicle to drive when CX season gets here.
heddwch
G
Friday, July 30, 2010
I so want donuts
DONUTS
anything more delicious or decadent than a perfect donut?
i think not. I so wish I had made it to Duck Donuts to get a fresh one. I did wind up eating a couple that were procured and they were great, but a fresh hot warm one?
Ohhhh.
Mmm.
DONUT
anything more delicious or decadent than a perfect donut?
i think not. I so wish I had made it to Duck Donuts to get a fresh one. I did wind up eating a couple that were procured and they were great, but a fresh hot warm one?
Ohhhh.
Mmm.
DONUT
3 days in a row was enough
Calves were complaining and I was dead tired this morning. Woke up and made the executive decision to tell my coach to get stuffed. Well at least for this morning's planned run.
just
couldn't
do
it
I'm not going to be able to move after tomorrow anyway. Might as well start the healing sooner than later. I've got 20 minute runs M-Th morning next week. Why not move tomorrow? Gonna be taking that transmission out. If you aren't racing Norwell and want to watch some big guy take a transmission and a clutch out - drop me a line - i might even have a cold beer for you to drink while you watch me struggle with it. I just hope I can make it through the ordeal looking cleaner than this Carbon Black Plant worker from 1942 (credit denverpost and adam myerson's tweet).
Once i get the flange off and the driver's side axle I should be good to go to get it out. gonna get that sumbitch out damn it. yes i am. have to.
Have to get it out so I can get to races. I might have mentioned that already. Well, yeah there - mentioned it again. Just need to get it done. Need to move on.
just
couldn't
do
it
I'm not going to be able to move after tomorrow anyway. Might as well start the healing sooner than later. I've got 20 minute runs M-Th morning next week. Why not move tomorrow? Gonna be taking that transmission out. If you aren't racing Norwell and want to watch some big guy take a transmission and a clutch out - drop me a line - i might even have a cold beer for you to drink while you watch me struggle with it. I just hope I can make it through the ordeal looking cleaner than this Carbon Black Plant worker from 1942 (credit denverpost and adam myerson's tweet).
Once i get the flange off and the driver's side axle I should be good to go to get it out. gonna get that sumbitch out damn it. yes i am. have to.
Have to get it out so I can get to races. I might have mentioned that already. Well, yeah there - mentioned it again. Just need to get it done. Need to move on.
sort of a follow up
Porke Rinds said:
"Best advice I ever got on cooking for kids (not that I do it frequently) is three ingredients or less - except that kids think of "dressing", "sauce" or "fried nugget/stick" as one ingredient."
the patterns they learn as kids affect them as adults. feed them real food that you cooked. then they see that food can be cooked, that it can be good, and they see what is going on with how you make it.
Best guideline: don't feed them anything that is sold with a nutrition label as the main part of the meal.
No ingredient list on the food = good to feed kids. Don't give them a choice. Make one thing for everyone. They'll get used to it. Might not eat everything every night but they will learn.
And that's what a parent's job is. To teach their kids how to survive.
Us Parents really don't have a whole lot of time with them to teach them so much. Don't waste any time.
My youngest actually has one of the best tasting palates imaginable. She's 5 and knows if something needs more salt, or if it is missing something else. She doesn't always know what it might need but with a few questions and given a few options she nails it almost every time.
When she is "helping" she wants to help open each spice/herb container, to smell them. She wants to know what is going in. She likes to taste it in different stages.
Learning to cook real food, is important. Teach em young, let them be aware of the process. Food doesn't come out of a box. The only thing that goes in the microwave are things you made the day before.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
FOOOOOOOD
So today was a sick day. Daughter was home running a fever last night - caught a stomach virus that's been kicking around. Low grade fever all day. A chance for me to catch up on some rest, put my feet up (ahhh recovery).
I started the day out with another one of those run things. Holy crap, no wonder i was slow last night. I got my doors blown off at the smack down. Dropped like Major Kong on the Douglas Hook road AND I lost MINUTES on Tourletot hill road. But i was pushing to the limit legs were on fire the whole time. Lungs weren't really taxed except a few times. Austin wasn't a bit problem for a change. This morning's run showed me specifically why i was so slow. Although part of it was eating lunch before noon and not eating anything else before the ride at 5pm. Low fuel and running legs = slow GeWilli.
Did basically the same as yesterday - ran for 5-7 minutes, walked for 3-5 or so, ran for another 5-7 minutes. It isn't much but after getting back it hurt like hell to walk down stairs. Lucy is loving it though. She does okay when I'm doing the run/walk combo, but not when I run solid for 20 minutes. She's too slow...
Got the run in, and well it was nice putting the feet up a bit today.
But i got inspired to write tonight because of dinner.
I done cooked food. Shock. No not really, i cook every night just about. Yall know that.
Tonight was new. Why? Dunno. But it was sooooo good.
Not sure what I'd call it but maybe a fish stir fry. The sauce was awesome.
I used some cod, marinated in soy sauce, fish sauce, five spice, garlic, tumeric, water, red wine, black pepper, Shirachi, corn starch, ground coriander, and toasted sesame oil oh and lime juice.
So it was under an hour with a break or two. Because that's how long it takes to cook the medium grain organic brown rice (okay 45 minutes).
So the fish really was the last part. Start with 6 med size organic carrots diced into cubes, tossed in the pan with some olive and grapeseed oils and a splash of soy sauce. Once they were slightly browned and toasted I cut up one MASSIVE organic sweet potato into slightly larger dice than the carrots and once they were soft I tossed in some onions and a bit of tumeric. Once the onions were softened I added a pile of cabbage (regular old green kind) and some of the reserved marinate/sauce. Then less than a minute before pulling the veggies off the heat I tossed in some yellow summer squash. Tossed it all around and put it into a big bowl.
After that it was time to crank the heat up in the pan, added a bit more grapeseed oil (trying to get the pan hotter than the smoke point of the olive oil). Fired up half of the fish. The fish was a nice Alaskan cod (sustainable - although not local -but really tasty). First batch was popped in plain, about 3/4 of a pound chopped into 2cm cubes. Second batch was coated with generous amount of flour. The fish cooks supa fast. Once the second batch was just about cooked I added the sauce and got it nice and thickened.
Served it layered with the rice, veggies and topped with the saucy fish sprinkled with some fresh from the farmer's market organic scallion tops.
HUGE flavor. Sooooooo good.
The texture of the fish was perfect, still nice and tender. The sweet potatoes were cooked through and soft but not dissolving, the carrots nice and caramelized, and the summer squash had not turned to mush.
Saw a bit of that new show Master Chef, and I got asked: What would I make for those judges? I have no idea. And that kind of bothers me. What is my signature dish. What do i make better than anyone else? What do i make that is uniquely me?
Makes me wonder a bit. Chili? Pasta sauce? Pasta is tough because if you screw up the noodles just a tiny bit the dish can be ruined for some people. Lettuce wraps like I made last week? Those were amazing and always get devoured. My wife feels that part of why my food tastes so good is the quality of the base ingredients, and ponders if I would be given the same level to use... it is a good point. I'm picking really high quality stuff, organic, local, and not just that but very picky about each individual, not just the source. It is possible that the ingredients would be good enough, and it is also a good idea to pick something to make that isn't going to rely as much on the intensity of the flavors of the raw ingredients. Yeah so maybe I'm getting a bit too foodie technical and nuanced about a completely hypothetical and unrealistic scenario. But yeah I over think even the impossible. No big shock there.
Going to pound the pavement a bit more tomorrow morning before riding in. Gotta get those muscles and connective tissue up to a level where they aren't hindering the cycling. Won't take too long. A couple weeks at most. Yeah I should have started sooner but I'm ahead of where I was last year, esp considering the injury i was dealing with then. So we'll see what happens eh?
Too bad the Killington CX race has been canceled but that means Quad should do better, maybe even the Brockton race. But likely for me the Quad will be the opening day. Or pre-season with Catamount being opening day.
Lets get the legs there... I hope my coach learned enough from last year to tweak it for me to bring an earlier peak and get me started a bit higher level... I'm hopeful. We'll see. That or i might have to fire my coach and hire Nega-coach for next year.
heddwch
G
I started the day out with another one of those run things. Holy crap, no wonder i was slow last night. I got my doors blown off at the smack down. Dropped like Major Kong on the Douglas Hook road AND I lost MINUTES on Tourletot hill road. But i was pushing to the limit legs were on fire the whole time. Lungs weren't really taxed except a few times. Austin wasn't a bit problem for a change. This morning's run showed me specifically why i was so slow. Although part of it was eating lunch before noon and not eating anything else before the ride at 5pm. Low fuel and running legs = slow GeWilli.
Did basically the same as yesterday - ran for 5-7 minutes, walked for 3-5 or so, ran for another 5-7 minutes. It isn't much but after getting back it hurt like hell to walk down stairs. Lucy is loving it though. She does okay when I'm doing the run/walk combo, but not when I run solid for 20 minutes. She's too slow...
Got the run in, and well it was nice putting the feet up a bit today.
But i got inspired to write tonight because of dinner.
I done cooked food. Shock. No not really, i cook every night just about. Yall know that.
Tonight was new. Why? Dunno. But it was sooooo good.
Not sure what I'd call it but maybe a fish stir fry. The sauce was awesome.
I used some cod, marinated in soy sauce, fish sauce, five spice, garlic, tumeric, water, red wine, black pepper, Shirachi, corn starch, ground coriander, and toasted sesame oil oh and lime juice.
So it was under an hour with a break or two. Because that's how long it takes to cook the medium grain organic brown rice (okay 45 minutes).
So the fish really was the last part. Start with 6 med size organic carrots diced into cubes, tossed in the pan with some olive and grapeseed oils and a splash of soy sauce. Once they were slightly browned and toasted I cut up one MASSIVE organic sweet potato into slightly larger dice than the carrots and once they were soft I tossed in some onions and a bit of tumeric. Once the onions were softened I added a pile of cabbage (regular old green kind) and some of the reserved marinate/sauce. Then less than a minute before pulling the veggies off the heat I tossed in some yellow summer squash. Tossed it all around and put it into a big bowl.
After that it was time to crank the heat up in the pan, added a bit more grapeseed oil (trying to get the pan hotter than the smoke point of the olive oil). Fired up half of the fish. The fish was a nice Alaskan cod (sustainable - although not local -but really tasty). First batch was popped in plain, about 3/4 of a pound chopped into 2cm cubes. Second batch was coated with generous amount of flour. The fish cooks supa fast. Once the second batch was just about cooked I added the sauce and got it nice and thickened.
Served it layered with the rice, veggies and topped with the saucy fish sprinkled with some fresh from the farmer's market organic scallion tops.
HUGE flavor. Sooooooo good.
The texture of the fish was perfect, still nice and tender. The sweet potatoes were cooked through and soft but not dissolving, the carrots nice and caramelized, and the summer squash had not turned to mush.
Saw a bit of that new show Master Chef, and I got asked: What would I make for those judges? I have no idea. And that kind of bothers me. What is my signature dish. What do i make better than anyone else? What do i make that is uniquely me?
Makes me wonder a bit. Chili? Pasta sauce? Pasta is tough because if you screw up the noodles just a tiny bit the dish can be ruined for some people. Lettuce wraps like I made last week? Those were amazing and always get devoured. My wife feels that part of why my food tastes so good is the quality of the base ingredients, and ponders if I would be given the same level to use... it is a good point. I'm picking really high quality stuff, organic, local, and not just that but very picky about each individual, not just the source. It is possible that the ingredients would be good enough, and it is also a good idea to pick something to make that isn't going to rely as much on the intensity of the flavors of the raw ingredients. Yeah so maybe I'm getting a bit too foodie technical and nuanced about a completely hypothetical and unrealistic scenario. But yeah I over think even the impossible. No big shock there.
Going to pound the pavement a bit more tomorrow morning before riding in. Gotta get those muscles and connective tissue up to a level where they aren't hindering the cycling. Won't take too long. A couple weeks at most. Yeah I should have started sooner but I'm ahead of where I was last year, esp considering the injury i was dealing with then. So we'll see what happens eh?
Too bad the Killington CX race has been canceled but that means Quad should do better, maybe even the Brockton race. But likely for me the Quad will be the opening day. Or pre-season with Catamount being opening day.
Lets get the legs there... I hope my coach learned enough from last year to tweak it for me to bring an earlier peak and get me started a bit higher level... I'm hopeful. We'll see. That or i might have to fire my coach and hire Nega-coach for next year.
heddwch
G
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
smack down night
Hoping to avoid being Major Kong'd tonight.
I did actually get out for a run this morning with Lucy. First run since... um... I dunno maybe December, or November. It has been a good bit of time.
So I started with the 5 min run, then walked about 5 min, then ran for another 5 min before walking a 5 min cool down. It is way lighter up here in the morning than down south in North Carolina, even on the outer banks. I like morning light.
Wasn't so bad. Took it really easy on the ride in - spun it and slowly caught one of my bike commuting co-workers and chatted for the remainder of the duration. Legs felt neither here nor there but the spinning and low torque felt good.
So yeah. This is awesome. Been sitting here since early this morning, the post that is. Busy day at the factory. Well an exciting morning followed by 3 hours of lab safety training. We do Haz Waste training annually but lab safety is every 5 years, meaning - it has been 5 years since I started out here.
Almost deserves a reflective (introspective) post all in it self. 5 years ago I was at least 30 pounds heavier than I am now. I could wear 501s only because i needed a 38w x 36l and that combo worked for that fat skinny legged me. Now, well, i'm back to the cyclist conundrum as to what freaking pants can I purchase that I can actually get on over my thighs and butt.
I was slow then way back then. No thoughts of racing until showing up at CX nationals and watching the 35+ B race thinking, you know, i could do that race. I naively thought that I could beat most of them, but hey, I was a typical delusional "returning to cycling 'old' dude". As in I thought I could race masters w/o a problem. It is just a bunch of old dudes like me, that 35+ race. No problem.
Hah.
Looking at CTurd's video seeing the front row starting position in the B masters race. Ctodd on one end. Me on the other. Starting from the front row! That was SUPER COOL. It also set up some bad habits in racing. Jumping from the gun and fading. And not really learning to pace or what I needed to sustain it.
I'm no where close to figuring it out well enough to hang with the front of the 35+ now. Well that's not true, I'm just not anywhere disciplined or talented enough to get there with the amount of work I put into training. But damn, I'm way a hell of a lot closer than when I started.
5 years is a long time.
It has gone by in a flash.
This season brings new challenges, but hopefully I can learn from the past and maybe not make all of the same mistakes again, or at least make new ones that I can learn from.
No time to dally with thoughts and remarks and the what not any more than that.
Stuff to do... going to be positive... going to focus on my strengths on this ride tonight and not let the weaknesses mess it up too much. Going to find something somewhere to push through the tough spots: Austin Road, Douglas Hook Road and Tourtellot Hill Road. They aren't huge hills, but some people just have way better power to weight than I do and that is just the way it is. But I know if I can hang on at those spots once we hit 116 and Greenville on the way home, I can make them struggle a bit. I know my recovery is doing pretty well lately, I just have to push and hold on as long as I can before getting gapped in those three places.
At least the weather is nicer than last week.
be good, be safe, ride smart
heddwch
G
I did actually get out for a run this morning with Lucy. First run since... um... I dunno maybe December, or November. It has been a good bit of time.
So I started with the 5 min run, then walked about 5 min, then ran for another 5 min before walking a 5 min cool down. It is way lighter up here in the morning than down south in North Carolina, even on the outer banks. I like morning light.
Wasn't so bad. Took it really easy on the ride in - spun it and slowly caught one of my bike commuting co-workers and chatted for the remainder of the duration. Legs felt neither here nor there but the spinning and low torque felt good.
So yeah. This is awesome. Been sitting here since early this morning, the post that is. Busy day at the factory. Well an exciting morning followed by 3 hours of lab safety training. We do Haz Waste training annually but lab safety is every 5 years, meaning - it has been 5 years since I started out here.
Almost deserves a reflective (introspective) post all in it self. 5 years ago I was at least 30 pounds heavier than I am now. I could wear 501s only because i needed a 38w x 36l and that combo worked for that fat skinny legged me. Now, well, i'm back to the cyclist conundrum as to what freaking pants can I purchase that I can actually get on over my thighs and butt.
I was slow then way back then. No thoughts of racing until showing up at CX nationals and watching the 35+ B race thinking, you know, i could do that race. I naively thought that I could beat most of them, but hey, I was a typical delusional "returning to cycling 'old' dude". As in I thought I could race masters w/o a problem. It is just a bunch of old dudes like me, that 35+ race. No problem.
Hah.
Looking at CTurd's video seeing the front row starting position in the B masters race. Ctodd on one end. Me on the other. Starting from the front row! That was SUPER COOL. It also set up some bad habits in racing. Jumping from the gun and fading. And not really learning to pace or what I needed to sustain it.
I'm no where close to figuring it out well enough to hang with the front of the 35+ now. Well that's not true, I'm just not anywhere disciplined or talented enough to get there with the amount of work I put into training. But damn, I'm way a hell of a lot closer than when I started.
5 years is a long time.
It has gone by in a flash.
This season brings new challenges, but hopefully I can learn from the past and maybe not make all of the same mistakes again, or at least make new ones that I can learn from.
No time to dally with thoughts and remarks and the what not any more than that.
Stuff to do... going to be positive... going to focus on my strengths on this ride tonight and not let the weaknesses mess it up too much. Going to find something somewhere to push through the tough spots: Austin Road, Douglas Hook Road and Tourtellot Hill Road. They aren't huge hills, but some people just have way better power to weight than I do and that is just the way it is. But I know if I can hang on at those spots once we hit 116 and Greenville on the way home, I can make them struggle a bit. I know my recovery is doing pretty well lately, I just have to push and hold on as long as I can before getting gapped in those three places.
At least the weather is nicer than last week.
be good, be safe, ride smart
heddwch
G
Monday, July 26, 2010
goosebumps
I'm sure most everyone has seen this already. But I'm slowly coming back up to internet speed. After all Ctodd is back in the states and I have a reputation to uphold. But I can't link the bottom bracket video - that would offer some understanding to those who don't get the connection. But you can go see his video: "Like steeple chase with bikes" "take your road bike and you stick some knobbies on it"
Bring it.
Bring it - and Greg - good luck man. Kill it this year with everything.
Bring it.
I am not sure what age I am anymore. I do not know of old, or young. I only know of weak or strong. Every day I push. The pain searing through my clavicle and the fear I have that it will never be strong again pales in comparison to the drive I have to ensure that the life savings I am burning through every day to create our new business is successful.
Weak or strong.
Bring it. Just bring it all. Given all these challenges in my life (and I say that with the absolute realization that these challenges are mostly self inflicted...I am inspired by those with REAL challenges. But alas, these are mine...), I see so clearly why we 'cross. It's simply the hardest possible set of challenges you can put yourself through on any given Sunday. It's an interesting thing in that there is no respite from the chaos of life when you suit up, pin a number on, dial in tire pressure and line up with your friends...all of whom have the same challenges Monday through Friday. I don't golf for this very reason. I do flog myself for this very reason, however.
I'm not the fastest.
I am not the skinniest.
I am not the strongest.
But if you find yourself in front of me, you better not make any mistakes. I will stalk you. I will overtake you. I will not let you out of my clenched teeth. I will get up when I've fallen. I will not stop.
I will heal. I will continue to push on my business. I will continue to balance my life and ensure all sides get all of me. I will push myself back up now that I am face down in the mud.
Bring it.
Bring it - and Greg - good luck man. Kill it this year with everything.
Time to start NOW
The Tour is over. And yes I ignored it for a while then, like ever year, i got sucked into it. Beehive has talked about it and those sports science guys too. I'm not going to add much other than to say it was sort of exciting, kind of.
That said - O M F G - did you see Cavendish's sprint? Mother of Nature he's impressive. That and going into the Bordeaux win (friday) he was sick and not feeling well, and he still destroyed everyone. A little less bad luck and he would have been in green on the Champs.
The Best Bike Blog Ever put a FB status up this morning that reads: "The Tour is over. Cyclocross pre-season officially starts today."
Yes. Yes it does.
I've been bashing myself around a bit, feeling that overwhelmed crushing feeling of helplessness, wondering how I'm going to get the rust bucket race wagon running again. Not really how, more about when. When? It didn't happen this weekend. Next weekend? Maybe? I hope so. It is going to be a two weekend job unless I get it apart one weekend and then order the parts and take a day off from work mid week to get it put back together. Mentally that's sort of what is holding me back a bit. Maybe that and not racing much at all since Purgatory. When was that anyway? A month ago? Yikes.
I guess this is my rest period. The lull before starting to ramp it up for cyclocross. Unintentional. But one none the less. It didn't help that by Friday last week I was seriously thinking about going back on the juice. The roasted bean juice. I've been doing well to hold the weight pretty constant in the 205-208 range for the last couple months, but no matter what I can't seem to drop that last little bit (no matter how I tweak the diet/caloric intake) I think my body is saying, "look dude, you're not small, you aren't skinny or 22 anymore, deal with it." Some how I keep thinking coffee might bring me just under 200 again. But I'm still not sure I want to give up the performance benefit, or be dependent on a daily cup or pot of it.
So at any rate. Like Joe Biker said over on FB, the tour is over, time to focus on CX. Time to finish digesting the latest issue (#9 - which you need to subscribe to the whole thing, send in some cash, get your own copy) of cyclocross magazine. Two of the best reads, hands down, are the interviews with the two guys who will be wearing the stars and bars in New England this season. Jonny and Kevin. Some damn good quotes coming out of Jonny's. His interview is like his riding style. Power and no apologies.
Oh and of course what comes on Pandora RIGHT NOW? "The Sick Note" sung by The Dubliners. Okay so i won't go through it all again, but no matter how many times I hear this tune, it still cracks me up.
"Well, I lay there groaning on the ground, I thougth I'd passed the worst,
when the barrel hit the pully-wheel and then the bottom burst.
Well, a shower of bricks rained down on me, I hadn't got a hope
as I lay there moaning on the ground, I let go of the bloody rope.
The barrel than being heavier, it started down once more,
and landed right across me, as I lay upon the floor.
Well, it broke three ribs and my left arm and I can only say
that I hope you'll understand why Paddy's not a work today."
Okay - well i didn't post the whole lyrics this time.
Final comment about the issues. The shot by Larry Rosa that they used on the two page spread to start the "Meet the Champs" section is really flat out my favorite memory of the Nationals course.
Railing through there in the 35+ race with everyone standing around yelling and laughing and screaming. making a successful evasion of a dude who ate shit right at the fold (in the mag the top line) made the crowd erupt for me. It was awesome hearing people cheering for you specifically. Then for the Clydesdale race that was packed even tighter with more people yelling, and in the dark you couldn't see past the first two rows but people were packed tight trying to offer up money and beer for the racers flying past. In the dark it was crazy and even more intense.
Okay. Just focusing on that for a minute, well Fahk I'm fired up and ready to go.
Time to sit down with my Coach and see what the hell he has in store for me next year. Get it planned out. I have the sheets from last year. He's probably going to do something similar this year.
Holy crap. How the hell have I not heard about The Tossers? I'm embarrassed to say I'm sure I've heard their music before but damn how can I not have any of their albums? I think I may have just found this seasons interval tracks, although I'm sure I'm going to have to use Death Magnetic for the longer intervals. These guys are awesome... fuuuuug.
Anyway - time to get going... cyclocross will be here sooner than later!
That said - O M F G - did you see Cavendish's sprint? Mother of Nature he's impressive. That and going into the Bordeaux win (friday) he was sick and not feeling well, and he still destroyed everyone. A little less bad luck and he would have been in green on the Champs.
The Best Bike Blog Ever put a FB status up this morning that reads: "The Tour is over. Cyclocross pre-season officially starts today."
Yes. Yes it does.
I've been bashing myself around a bit, feeling that overwhelmed crushing feeling of helplessness, wondering how I'm going to get the rust bucket race wagon running again. Not really how, more about when. When? It didn't happen this weekend. Next weekend? Maybe? I hope so. It is going to be a two weekend job unless I get it apart one weekend and then order the parts and take a day off from work mid week to get it put back together. Mentally that's sort of what is holding me back a bit. Maybe that and not racing much at all since Purgatory. When was that anyway? A month ago? Yikes.
I guess this is my rest period. The lull before starting to ramp it up for cyclocross. Unintentional. But one none the less. It didn't help that by Friday last week I was seriously thinking about going back on the juice. The roasted bean juice. I've been doing well to hold the weight pretty constant in the 205-208 range for the last couple months, but no matter what I can't seem to drop that last little bit (no matter how I tweak the diet/caloric intake) I think my body is saying, "look dude, you're not small, you aren't skinny or 22 anymore, deal with it." Some how I keep thinking coffee might bring me just under 200 again. But I'm still not sure I want to give up the performance benefit, or be dependent on a daily cup or pot of it.
So at any rate. Like Joe Biker said over on FB, the tour is over, time to focus on CX. Time to finish digesting the latest issue (#9 - which you need to subscribe to the whole thing, send in some cash, get your own copy) of cyclocross magazine. Two of the best reads, hands down, are the interviews with the two guys who will be wearing the stars and bars in New England this season. Jonny and Kevin. Some damn good quotes coming out of Jonny's. His interview is like his riding style. Power and no apologies.
Oh and of course what comes on Pandora RIGHT NOW? "The Sick Note" sung by The Dubliners. Okay so i won't go through it all again, but no matter how many times I hear this tune, it still cracks me up.
"Well, I lay there groaning on the ground, I thougth I'd passed the worst,
when the barrel hit the pully-wheel and then the bottom burst.
Well, a shower of bricks rained down on me, I hadn't got a hope
as I lay there moaning on the ground, I let go of the bloody rope.
The barrel than being heavier, it started down once more,
and landed right across me, as I lay upon the floor.
Well, it broke three ribs and my left arm and I can only say
that I hope you'll understand why Paddy's not a work today."
Okay - well i didn't post the whole lyrics this time.
Final comment about the issues. The shot by Larry Rosa that they used on the two page spread to start the "Meet the Champs" section is really flat out my favorite memory of the Nationals course.
Railing through there in the 35+ race with everyone standing around yelling and laughing and screaming. making a successful evasion of a dude who ate shit right at the fold (in the mag the top line) made the crowd erupt for me. It was awesome hearing people cheering for you specifically. Then for the Clydesdale race that was packed even tighter with more people yelling, and in the dark you couldn't see past the first two rows but people were packed tight trying to offer up money and beer for the racers flying past. In the dark it was crazy and even more intense.
Okay. Just focusing on that for a minute, well Fahk I'm fired up and ready to go.
Time to sit down with my Coach and see what the hell he has in store for me next year. Get it planned out. I have the sheets from last year. He's probably going to do something similar this year.
Holy crap. How the hell have I not heard about The Tossers? I'm embarrassed to say I'm sure I've heard their music before but damn how can I not have any of their albums? I think I may have just found this seasons interval tracks, although I'm sure I'm going to have to use Death Magnetic for the longer intervals. These guys are awesome... fuuuuug.
Anyway - time to get going... cyclocross will be here sooner than later!
Friday, July 23, 2010
Thursday, July 22, 2010
so yall have heard about "Chain gate"
Yeah? Well as soon as I saw/heard that Andy dropped his chain I immediately thought of this post.
Ryan Kelly vs Andy Schleck. Poor Andy. It is like Saxobank asked Results Boy to be a mechanic for a day or something.
Ryan Kelly vs Andy Schleck. Poor Andy. It is like Saxobank asked Results Boy to be a mechanic for a day or something.
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