Back to hauling rocks

After 4 days of driving the Newport Biodiesel powered rusty race wagon, I'm back on the bike.

Loaded the trailer, added a new safety wrinkle to the rig and left the rain cover at home.  The rain cover makes it significantly more aerodynamic, in addition to keeping the contents nice and dry.  Not content to just have the drag from the uncovered trailer, I popped the big rock back in the seat, with the back loaded on a monday (extra-stuff it seems).

The safety "wrinkle" was temporarily attached with some wire for the moment.  I think a reflector bracket would would perfectly for the top attachment point.  Bottom one? Might actually get away with a rubber band or something else to provide a bit of tension.

A nice morning ride in.  Cars were extremely polite on the way in with one exception.  An old dude driving and aging Camry didn't leave much room.  He probably thought he was based on the fact that he was 6" away from the curb after passing me.  One of those drivers more afraid of the other lane than the curb on the right side of the car.

Links from this morning:

If you see this link, tossed around as a reason to drink and drink and never get dehydrated, well keep in mind, VO2 was unchanged between the two trials.  It would be been more informative if they had a third group actually consume enough fluid to be hyperhydrated (pushing close to the hyponatremia level) to see if that did anything.  Nice study but it still doesn't offset the fact that marathon runners seem to do best with much higher losses than that (up to 10% even).  Better to be dehydrated and balanced in salts than heading to hyponatremia from drinking far from isotonic fluids.

FWIW: To make something isotonic with just salt, you need about 9 grams of sodium chloride per liter of water.  Cambell's Tomato Juice (not the low sodium one) has a touch more than 7 grams of sodium chloride per liter.  Pretty f'n close.

As gross as it sounds, and sometimes is, if you're out on a long hot ride, start cramping and need to buy something? Get the tomato juice.  V8 is pretty good, much much higher in Potassium (esp the spicy one) but significantly less sodium (still 2-3x more than a pre-bottled sports drink).

It also seems that Gatorade, aka Pepsi, has quietly bowed to the market pressure and switched from HFCS to sucrose and dextrose.  Still likely derived from #2 corn (pure speculation on my part), so better than HFCS? Maybe.  Maybe not.

Speaking of #2 corn.  Plenty of opinion is being written about this study. (like this one).  Can we avoid it? No, but can "we" do something? Maybe.  

This isn't an uncommon opinion. 

Screw em, people know that shit isn't healthy, they gotta want to be fit/healthy, and it hasn't come to that yet.

So where does that leave you.  Not giving a shit? Or caring too much.  Obviously I bounce back and forth between sides.  Never sitting on the fence, but if you only see one snapshot, it might seem that I'm only on one side.  With the Corn issues and the BT and the rest of the GMO byproducts in the food source, how does it make you feel about companies that load up on maltodextrin as their "fuel" source?  Me? Not so good.

But then I'm not a fan of Xylitol or Stevia so I'm often not using the one big company that banks on maltodextrin.  Xylitol is a naturally occurring sugar alcohol.  But what you find in those is generally made from a chemically treated corn products.  Stevia? well that is another sugar alcohol (basically). Still probably extracted from plants but i'd be surprised if one of Monsanto's companies isn't making it out of corn right now, even if only in the lab.  

Nothing but opinion about the sugar alcohols.  Want to use them? go for it. Just not my preference lately.

Anyway, my plans today: ride in, make coffee, deal with morning stuff, go do the east side hill circuit (I need to drag someone along with a garmin - or get lazy and just map it out myself on the computer) on the steep side a couple times and then get back to dealing with stuff.

Never made it out.  Have to head to the remote facility today so I'll at least get one go round of the hills.  Maybe I'll do a few loops on the steep section of College Hill (down Hopkins, right on Main, right and up the 17% grade on College, right on benefit, down Hopkins...) it is a 10-15 second all out high torque interval.  Why not. Structured training? Pfft. That's for fast people, or for closer to the season.  Right now I'm just trying to manage life fatigue and riding enough to maintain some level of something.

Whoa, a bit more wordy than I'd planned to get out there.  

*shrug*

it is what it is

heddwch

G

Feel Good Friday

Nope. Yeah not really at all.

Chabot's got it right.  Today sucks.

It shouldn't, by any reasonable metric.  But it does.

couple videos

So going to have to make these some day, soon.  

Dad of the year contender:

Mike McCabe photos

from Sunday's Ninigret 3/4 race

3 man TT

Well not quite, three man body blow kick each other's asses ride more like it.

Fox and Derdowski showed up, pretty solid crew.  Derdowski has been riding with focus and determination lately and Fox? well f'n Fox is just strong.  Not lightweights these too, so it was a watt fest throw down.

I headed down to the ride with a few drops of rain falling, drops that probably scared everyone else away, and you know what? I'm okay with that.  Riding with just two other well matched friends is one hell of a good way to destroy some legs.

Go Hahdah

I have this image printed out and above my desk here in the office, 9/14/2010 (based on the printer header) is a long time to glance up and see Pete giving it everything at Quad Cross.

Todd P took the image.  Now I'm not super keen on the de-saturation or filtering of the image - just go all black and white or stick with native colors, but man does it capture what it takes to give it your all at the finish of a race.  CX or otherwise.

Pete Smith.  A guy who is doing it right.  Now go buy some stuff and get a Birthday gift with your order.

When does cross season start?

Race day

Yesterday.

Managed to get a race in.

Prov Velo Club new kits aren't in yet so I dusted off the perforated CX Racing dot com skinsuit and hoped I could get one more number pinned on there before the square of fabric popped out like a paper cut out doll.

the week... is over

So these stay at home with the girls while they are on vacation really is not a great way to get miles in.

Nor is it a good way to go into a race on Sunday.  A week off the bike.  Mentally I am a bit more rested.  Physically too.  But man do I feel slow.

Wed's ride was tough, very tough.  Got my butt kicked after I flexed a bit too much. I did manage to ride in to the shop last night, then swing through the picture factory to fix a few microscopes.  So I got a few miles in there. 

Today i wasn't sure if I was going to be driving the oil burner (finally back on Newport BioDiesel) so I fed the girls some lunch, asked them to be nice, and set off for to do a loopy thing.

Rode 18 min down to near Syl's house and went around a short circuit. And around.  And around.

15sec on, all out, as hard as I could go.... 15 seconds off...  had to increase rest for the corners and once for a garbage truck, switched over to 20s-20s but going with an easier gear but focusing on spin.  Those hurt. Finally back to 15s and full out of the saddle sprint with downshifts.

The ride down to the loop was into a pretty stiff headwind, but even on the old croll with fenders and those crazy wide bars I was going about 20mph when other user traffic was light. Pretty easily too.  

When 23 min rolled around I was cooked, felt vaguely pukey, solid cross gut going and was feeling it.  So back home, lets see if I can be gone just for an hour.  

And with the tail wind...

i was only able to maintain 12 mph most of the time.

cooked myself good.

got back, ate some food, ran an errand, and headed  into the shop.

on my bike.

oof.

hopefully it did some good - was fun, and felt good to get targeted intensity in, even if it is on the commuting only bike.

heddwch

G

What the hell happened

It was ball sweating warm for a good couple of days and today i go out for the Wed night Leg Waster and FREEZE.

Okay not freeze but it was 48°F when I got home.  Bare arms and legs = not so ideal.

But while riding it was fine.  Actually for a few sections (the climbs) I was regretting the baselayer and the cycling cap.

Peng from Brown showed up, Andrew, Burke and Fox rounded out the quintet.  No slouches.

Burke took the opening sprint with my leadout for the state line.  For some reason I didn't shift, I should have but I didn't.  Just tried to spin up to him.  I managed to match his speed but didn't go around him.  Then we all took turns pegging it, nice paceline thing. No chatting. We were single file full TTT mode today.  Burke attacked the null town line, which was fine because I just held the pace up till Pine.

Peng, then Andrew set a really solid pace, I sat on Burke's wheel and when Peng jumped I jumped and went around to take Pine, but didn't really let up until the top of the hill. Wow did that hurt.  Like, that hurt a LOT.  The time off the bike since the RdR3.0 was not really beneficial.

We kept the hammer down, how fast? Not a clue. The magnet i put on this old wheel didn't seem to want to play nice with the sensor, so not only did I not have my HRM chest strap (still MIA) I didn't have speed. NO FEED BACK! OMG! FREAKOUT...  not really.

We hit Rocky Hill and skinny Andrew took over the pace from Peng and drilled it, again I was sitting back on burke's wheel who was sitting on Fox's wheel.  At the spot I usually wait to attack, Burke wound it up, and I took advantage of it and used it as a leadout and blew past him to take Rocky hill.  Floating down the hill, I managed to recover a tiny bit but wound up leading out all the way to the turn onto Hillside. Usually I try and recover from the sprint and set up my chances for surviving/winning Hillside.  I didn't.  And we turned on to Hillside and Fox set a good pace, then Burke made a suicide attack on the first steep section.  It is a stair step climb, and he blew it all on the first one.

Which would have been okay if Andrew wasn't there because Andrew is super skinny and very strong.  And he took that pace and ran with it after Burke blew.  I was hoping they wouldn't.  I rode it, but I was dropped.  Sadly.  It sucked.  I sucked.  Nice wake up call though.  And it was good that I didn't win them all.

I was too far back to see who actually won Hillside.

Burke pulled me back to the other three and then I went up to set up the speed run down Read to Walker.  Gave a flick of the elbow to Andrew who was on my wheel and he didn't move. Flicked again, nothing.
FUCK DUDE PULL THROUGH! Peng did wind up pulling through but that was it for me, too much.  Which is good, means I was hitting the limit, gotta hit it hard to move that limit.  But was bad because Peng kept drilling it and went right past the improved route.  We re-grouped at 152 and agreed not to sprint for the state line and just rode tempo to the stop light.  From there it was basically neutralized.

Got back to the bridge a few minutes after 6pm.  Not a bad pace for the day, even considering I was slow and pokey...

The Klein felt sharp and fast, was just nice to be riding even if my arms are still frozen.  I thought it was going to be over 60°F but nope - i think we actually wound up starting with it a handful of degrees below that.  And windy.  The ride home into the wind from the bridge was cold.  Brrr.

silly little ride report

heddwch
G

Make it work Lunch at home

Leg Wasting Wednesday Waterman Grille ride is tonight...  can't pull a Nick and not eat.  Didn't want to make a sandwich, there was some left over rice (long grain organic brown rice - bulk at WF)....

Fried rice time.

Olive oil in the hot pan.

Cracked two eggs into the pan, mixed em up and let them cook.  scraped em out into a bowl.

more olive oil
1/4 diced onion
1/4 diced red bell pepper
1/2 cup garbanzo beans (soaked the day before, cooked yesterday, waiting to make hummus with)
1/4 cup frozen shelled edemame
touch of beef fat (caloric loading and to modify the fatty acid profile)
-yes, when i make burgers inside i save the rendered fat in the pan - why waste? esp using good beef.

got that all nice and hot.
Added 1.5-2 cups of cold rice
mixed it up got it warm
Added some shoyu (tablespoon or so)
two spoonfuls of the green chili sauce (that i made the other night)
teaspoon or so of turmeric, some fresh black pepper

added a bit of water to make a sauce and to de-glaze the pan.

added the egg, took one thin slice of some Applegate Blackforest ham and diced it and added that too.

Once all mixed up I served it with a pile of chopped wicked hot Habanero peppers and a teaspoon or so of some of the Sirachi sauce.

So good.  Took about 10-15 and I have good bit of really tasty and spicy food.

Simple ingredients, nothing really complicated.  not possible to make in the office but being home with the girls on vacation has some benefits.

heddwch
G

new beetroot stuff

http://www.andjrnl.org/article/S2212-2672(11)01948-4/abstract

It works.

A while back I was pondering the suggestion that nitrates aren't bad for you in Bacon, meats and what not.

Got me thinking (what doesn't).  Beetroot and vegetable nitrate is very different than the stuff in meats.

Why?  Sodium Nitrate and Sodium Nitrite are added to kill shit, and keep shit from growing.  The stuff in veggies are physiologically active, not for killing, for living.

Very different.

Do you really want to eat foods containing stuff that is added to kill living organisms?  Do you? I don't.

not going to belabor the point - pretty clear IMHO,,,

GeWilli Green Chili sauce

So I know I linked that other recipe, but I had to tweak it.

#1 what is a green chili sauce w/o some tomatillos or cilantro?  I mean really.  Gotta have those in there.

#2 raw flour as a thickener? Yuck.  Seriously.  No thank you, that is a culinary faux pas on the order of showing up at the start of a cyclocross race with a tank top and a tri-bike.  If you want to thicken with flour you need to make a roux, and you need to make sure you cook the flour.  Yes. People will disagree, I'm still not going to do it.  Corn starch? mix some with a bit of cold water (organic GMO free is easily found now so you can make the hippies happy) and that's fine, just not flour.

Okay so what did I do.

1/2 an onion diced.
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 cloves crushed garlic
3 fresh anahiem chilies
1 fresh poblano chili
3 medium size tomatillos (diced)
small bunch of cilantro (1/4 of the cut fresh bundle from the store) finely chopped stems and all
salt
freshly ground cumin
coriander
pepper
1.5 cup water

First up cut the peppers in half, take the white stuff out and roast them.  I do it right on the gas stove on the burner set high.  If you don't have a gas stove you can put them on a grill or put them under the broiler until they are mostly black and start smelling like pure awesomeness.

So with those roasted, let them cool down for a bit before chopping them (DAMHIK).  When they are cool dice them up nice and small.

Put the oil in a sauce pan, get it hot, pop in the onions and let them soften and start to carmelize but not burn, add in the diced chilies, the diced tomatillos and the garlic and the spices.  Let that get nice and hot and reduce some of the liquid out, then pop in the water, bring it to a boil and simmer for 10-15 min. Cilantro should go in with the water, you will lose a tiny bit of the freshness but you'll make it more consistent and the stems will break down.

Once it is nice and cooked grab your immersion blender and go to town.  You could also stick it in a few batches through a regular blender.  The goal is to make a nice smooth sauce.

The recipe above says to use the thickener, but mine didn't need it one bit.  Maybe the extra fiber mass from the cilantro and the tomatillos added some bulk.  I did put a tiny bit of cayenne pepper in there, but not much.  I add heat to my stuff with fresh habanero peppers.

We wound up using most of it with dinner, but the rest got popped in a jar and put in the fridge.  Probably won't last long.

yes - you have to chop, cook and it is easier to just buy a jar of green chili sauce... but this stuff is fresh, and the effort you put in is well worth it.

Making food from scratch is always worth it.  Always.

heddwch
G

quick coleslaw

So today is cooling off fast, like a proper New England day.

But it still called for a bit of a concession to the warmth.

Coleslaw.

yeah, food.

mmmm

Finely chop 1/4-1/2 head of cabbage
Peel and grate 4 carrots
Slice 1/2 an onion (place in ice cold water for 10 min)

While onion is soaking (yes there is a reason, no i don't feel like writing about it now) grab one of those mustard containers with not enough to get out, but are perfect for making salad dressing in.  I used a 365 organic German Mustard bottle.

In the bottle, balsalmic vinegar, organic seasoned rice vinegar (the organic one has less sugar and salt than the other one), some celery seed, mustard powder (1/4 tsp of each maybe) and then olive oil.

go about 1/2 and half with the vinegar/oil...  shake vigorously.

add about 1/4 tsp celery seed to the top of the cabbage and carrots in the bowl.  Shake some salt over it, drain the onions, dump the dressing over it (whole bottle of it - nothing is worse than under dressed coleslaw).

Toss it.

Let it sit.

if you can.

I can't seem to let it sit.

K who HATES cabbage in her salad or stir fry or anything, LOVES this coleslaw.

And yeah. It is so good.

Never every can make enough of it.  Which is too bad because it keeps really well in the fridge.  And since it is all just veggies oil, mustard and vinegar, you can leave it out if you want, take it on a picnic and the food freaks who throw stuff away that is sitting out for an hour can eat without the same horror that would grip them seeing a bowl of that icky mayo based coleslaw stuff.

So good.

If you'll excuse me I'm going to go sneak another bite while I make my green chili sauce (with tomatillos and cilantro).

heddwch
G

RdR 3.0 the words

Where do you start with a ride like this.  So much build up, so much preparation, logistics, planning and thinking about it really almost starts after the end of the last one.

This year scheduling was working against me for a bit.  My parents are on their East Coast tour and played at the Peace Abbey Saturday night.  No choice but to go, of course.  Who knows if there will be another chance to see my Grandmother's memorialized awards and see her Table (seems the cabinets and table are moving to Umass Boston) in their original setting.  There was initially a chance that they would come home with us and we would spend Sunday together.  If that happened no RdR for me.  It actually went back and forth.  Team Captain (Jerry, the VT Ice Cube) said we were doing it.  Nick was on board, Curtis was too, even though he thought it was going to be on Saturday until a few days before hand.  Gary bowed out to run 17 miles around a mountain and for scheduling conflicts.  We did pick up the great smelling Cort Cramer as a 5th along the way.

It was a bit back and forth for a few week, and then my folks got a gig in Maine for the 15th.  They left the Peace Abbey at 10:30pm or so and drove straight to Pemaquid, ME.  Yeah. Sort of a long drive after a concert.  They are headed back down here tonight, hopefully in time for dinner.  No clue what I'm making yet. I should probably go shopping, we'll see. Could be a crazy make it work dinner, or just a regular burrito/taco salad night, or we go shopping.

The concert in Maine cemented it.  I was going.  Mid-week I was actually trying to get out of it, just wasn't feeling it, I was in a funk and focused on the negative aspects of last year, getting back and racing home to the family dinner (again with my parents on tour).  Nick was persuasive enough, basically saying, you are going to do this, no backing out, period.

So prep began.  Mentally then in action.

Things got checked off the list.  Tires, garmin, bike, cash, food, beverages...  things fell into place pretty effortlessly.  And as each one did, I started to get more excited about it.  The weather initially forecast rain, but I only saw it here in Rhode Island when I was driving.  It was clear and dry before I got to Foxboro.

Saturday was day 3 at the bike shop.  A few evenings followed by the whole day.  I rode in.  Ate a whole pile of Pad Thai (with tofu) from Aspara for lunch.  A handful of pancakes before and after lunch.  When the shop closed at 5 we grabbed some dinner at Hope Street Pizza, saw Brent and Derdowski there (not together, but they do make a cute couple).  Ate, gathered the oldest from her Swan Lake rehearsal and headed north to the Peace Abbey.  Ate.  Lots.  Of. Food.

Snacked on some Easter colored Peanut M&Ms on the drive home.  And once home I started getting stuff together.  Clothes and what not, everything except loading the bike in the car and making breakfast.  I put the MLFN letters on the bike after cutting the ends of the zip-ties holding the Garmin on.  But I was still a bit wired.  Eventually I got in bed around midnight.  But sleep eluded me.  I dozed on and off all night.  Eventually getting up at 5:45.  Very much sleepy and feeling totally un-rested I set about trying to get out of the house by 6:30.  After making a few breakfast sandwiches (my preferred long ride food), grabbing the last two slices of greek pizza (spinach, feta, fresh tomato and olives) from dinner and making a bit of coffee the car was loaded and I drove off in the drizzle at 6:50.  And I slummed and picked up some DD iced coffee.  For the waterbottles.  Yes.  I started the ride with two bottles of Dunkin black iced coffee.

Metallica mix CD from the last race was the sound track for the drive.  I made it.  Pulling a U-turn there at the Tavern at 7:50.  Found Nick and pointed out that he was parked in the one Handicap spot on the street...  he moved his car.  we've both got functional shitbox cars.  He likes to say his is in better shape.  It might be.  But my rust bucket got me there and home w/o issue.  Will it make it another 3-5 years? I really hope so, doubtful though.

It was really actually incredibly easy and quick to get to the Tavern.  Not only is the owner awesome to support the event, but the location kicks ass for getting to.  Helps that there is little traffic at that hour on a Sunday morning.

Cort showed up a bit late, and Jerry and Curtis rolled in later.  We missed the rider meeting, but we were in the later waves.  I think we missed our wave even still.

The goodie bag was labeled CX OMP.  CyclocrossRacing.com team kit has the big CX on it, and OMP? Well OMP is the hashtag for Old Man Power.  We were all old.  And the slowest of us is really not very slow.

Jerry was wearing arm warmers and a baselayer to start the ride.  No one else was.  And we were looking at him funny.  He cracked, melted, sweated his shorts white (they were black at the start).  Maybe he didn't need them?

We rolled out, Jack's Garmin was calculating, but we were moving and it was probably confused.  So I turned it off, and back on, and realized I hadn't started it.  Did that and switched over to Map view mode while Jerry called off the next turn.

Spooky and the Gang was with us at the start.  We rolled off as a group of 8 or 9.  But gapped them in the technical stuff.  First Curtis, then Nick was riding sweet lines through the trails and Cort and Jerry weren't having any trouble keeping up.

There was plenty of "Where to now?" slowing and looking.  Esp hitting the first section of Trail.

But it was fun.  The tires pumped up to 60psi were bouncing off everything and traction was no where near CX racing requirements but it worked.

Total blast being on the edge of crashing.  Two wheel powerslides were the norm.  Plenty of locking up the rear wheel to make the turn.

We popped out and at some point on the roads we wound up heading towards Cutler.  Roads I had ridden on with Cameron and Wilcox, it was pretty sweet.  Traffic was light but we were generally following the lights and the rules of the road.  Waiting for Red Lights and what not.  No breaking the law in the CX OMP gang.

Cutler was awesome.  We caught up with one of the woman's teams in Cutler just before one of the board walks.  We were f'n FLYING through that stuff.  Nick was setting a pretty determined pace and we were freaking railing it and having fun.  Maybe not tongue dragging pace but it was swoopy.  SWOOOPY.  I LOVE SWOOPY.  I pretty much could be heard all over the whole park.  Andy Huff was at the exit changing a flat or waiting for a team mate to change it and he made a comment "oh that was you, makes sense."  I was loud.  It was f'n FUN.

We actually passed a ton of teams.  Some were fixing flats, others were riding slowly, or looking at the cue sheet.  The Quad gang did catch us before the Charles trail IIRC.  They were on a tear.  Pre-riding had given then the route and they were just cranking to set the best time.  Knowing the roads is super key to setting a blistering pace.  Curtis and Nick were setting hot shit pacing on the road sections.  Jerry was hanging on and Cort was just wicked hung over.  But he smelled nice.

At some unknown point Nick ejected a bottle out of his crappy plastic holders.  But who knows where.  Then at some section of trail he actually lost the second one, but noticed it and went back for it.

Honestly there is a bit of blurr in my brain as to how it all links together.

We lost the Quad train when Jerry broke a chain.  As in broke off, had to turn around and look for it.  Just as nick and I settled in to eat he comes bombing down the hill chain fixed and drops us.  Fucker fixed a busted chain in less than 3 minutes.

It was enough to lose the Quad express but we motored and and powered on.  I was working my ass off to close the gap.  Jerry and Curtis and Cort were flying and me and Nick were going as hard as we could to close the gap.  There was lots of that.  Lots of going flat out to catch up after some sections.

We came out of the trail not quite sure where we were supposed to go after a gap and a wrong turn but caught back on. I think that was where we saw the Chip and stache express.  And what Nick and I were drilling it to catch back.  Or maybe it was me and Jerry. I dunno.  But we got back on and dropped the NEBC gang.

A couple steep run ups would have been easier with toe spikes.  Honestly I was expecting to see the Chipster cleaning EVERYTHING but he wasn't.  CX OMP had skills.  Even me.  I was hopping shit left and right.  There were a handful I had to dismount but the guys would get off and I'd just slow down, let em clear it and then ride it clean.  Was a fucking BLAST.

Trails don't suck.  Well the bumpy rocky ones do.

And the one right after the Cumby farms one REALLY sucked.  We hit it at 25 mph and Nick's bottles ejected at the same time my bike made a terrible crack sound as my bars rotated a degree (alloy no worry) but it hurt.  And then it was old rail bed and those guys weren't slowing down.  Took a bit to get back on the train.

We did stop for water at the Cumby.  I bought a gatorade and a gallon of water.  Wound up with 1/2 a gallon left when everyone was topped up but then marky mark showed up and gratefully took my offer of the cold water.  A quick stop, and really the only non-mechanical stop.  No RSC, no Bagel place.

At one point Chip got a flat and Curtis realized his wheel problem was because the spoke on the mavic had come out.  Took longer to get that sorted than Chip's flat tire change (yes, Jerry's Pedro's tool had the mavic spoke wrench).  And we lost them for a bit.  But caught up just by being awesome on the trails.

After the water stop and while we were cruising at 22mph on the old rail bed behind the Aumiller express Jerry was mostly OTB so I drifted back to give him a draft and hopefully keep him from cracking more and getting him back to the group.  But well.  I guess I missed seeing a big rock and he nailed it with the front wheel.  Hard enough to rotate his bars and pinch flat.  I didn't see it, but still feel bad about it.  I should have seen it.  Oh well.

The flat meant the Chipstick train was gone.  Our massive advantage was driving away, along with DJ.  Hale had a little shuffle speaker thing on his bike cranking out beats the whole time.  It alternated being annoying and entertaining.

My brain can't remember how it all linked up well enough while writing.  If you were on the ride with me you can probably piece the sections here together better.

The railbed stava speed section was crazy sketchy and fun.  We were flying along it, like FLYING.  Curtis was way up there and Matt was drilling it with chip, uri, me, hale, then cort, nick jerry...  flying.  Uri washed out before we went up and over the road and started the speed section and then for some reason chip jumped to the rail bed, so I did, but I nearly ate shit, but saved it.

Felt nice to have handling save my bacon more than once.

Jerry caught a good stick at some point and went over the bars only to get run over by Chip.  I was in the back but nick said it was pretty funny.

Jerry's flat though.  Back to that.  He got the old tube out and the new one in pretty quickly.  But his CO2 blew its wad w/o doing anything.  Then he broke out the pump, only to find the tube to be not working, despite being in the fancy Schwalbe tube bag.  I handed over a spare SV15 tube i had in my jersey pocket and eventually Jerry got it fixed.  Everyone had blown through at that point and we were alone.  Navigating and drilling it when we could.

Tempo was everything.  Every hill was a challenge to keep Jerry attached to the group.  But the last section of trail my handling was gone.  Jerry said I was over cooking every corner.  And I was.  I was fucking them up good.  But we didn't really get lost.  And then at some point we found the Cambridge boys with a busted rear dear on one bike and Cort realized he knew where we were and we set pace for home.

So much fun.  I cracked once or twice from not eating enough soon enough, and then not drinking enough soon enough.  But that's what you get for going hard and having fun.  You forget about stuff like that.

Also not as many chances for photographs.

But.

It

was

a

fucking

BLAST

seriously maybe the most fun i've had on a bike since I don't know when.

Really did feel like Mark's spirit was with me.  Just happy and full of fun.  Just like he always was.

I'm sure I'm forgetting something.  Maybe all the red lights that the Chipstick and Aumiller express were running.  Seriously they were doing this Alley Cat 'breaking the law' style, red lights? meant nothing if the road was clear.

We certainly looked pretty damn pro, the 4 of us in matching kits, smooth and steady.  It really did feel like  a team.  Never a doubt about the other guys.  100% trust in their line choice and abilities.  A comfort you have to look long and hard to find #TWSS (had to be done).  Was nice.  Cort's not on the same team but he's got that same skills and that level of good friend that trust comes from.  Would have been even more awesome if Gary had been there.  But it was a wicked solid awesome Team bonding experience.

We stuck together.  No question.  No one left behind.

That ride.

Was.

Awesome.

Thanks to RoseyScott, Chip and Aumiller, Gus and everyone else.  So awesome that it raised some cash for Bikes not Bombs.

Seriously Awesome.  Scott's recap is up now.

Once again I didn't stick around for the Raffle.  But I was tired, and was falling asleep on the drive home, a beer would have been bad, and that's what was going on inside.  Also feeling somewhat anti-social.  Had a burger outside the Tavern with Nick after Jerry and Curtis left for the Sox game and Cort headed home to his dog.  So tired.

Legs were so fried.  I was never at my limit, but I was so close and the end was starting to hurt quite a bit.

I think it was harder than the ride with Dean.  Despite being 1/2 as long.

The headset loosened up quite a bit on the ride, but that's fixed now.  Strava has been uploaded.  So where did we ride? Here's the map, speed and elevation profile.

Legs are still destroyed today, but I haven't ridden at all, so that's probably part of it.  Lazy day off at home with the girls on a vacation day. A good opportunity to write this up.

Re-read? Proof-read? Not a fucking chance.  At least not at the moment.  If i messed something up, feel free to correct me.

This was fun.  I might have to make a point to hit some more trails with the CX bike.  or maybe even dust off the Mt Bike.  CX bike would be better though, if nothing else to be sharper when CX season rolls around.

enough words?

maybe...

yes

but one more:

Heddwch
G

Riding with the memory of a friend

Late (11:30pm) Saturday night the 14th I looked at the Blue Norcross EX all ready to go ride the Ronde de Rosey 3.0.  The Schwalbe gen 1 Racing Ralphs were mounted with nice SV17 tubes inside filled with 25grams of Doc Blue (the original, not re-branded Stans).

Jack Madden at Legend Bikes set me up with his Garmin Edge 605 for the day, I'd hoped to upload and use the GPS track that the Quad guys laid down, but i couldn't figure it out, or it just spent too long trying to calculate in the end, but man it helped out quite a bit when we weren't riding with Chipstick and Co.  Jerry calling out turns, me checking map and confirming.  Knowing what the road was called before we could read a street sign helped tremendously.  But we were still sort of slow riding trying to follow the cue sheet.

Bike was ready to go.  And I got to thinking about someone who would have just absolutely loved to do this with me.  I didn't have any of his signature green on the bike.

I remembered the ancient roll of Fisher Sci lab tape from MSU I had kicking around in my bag...  So i grabbed some scissors and made my own letters for the down tube.

Here it is.  I had the sigma on there as backup and initially planed for it to give me some HR feedback but my chest strap is missing.  The mileage on it is from the start of the Wed night leg waster until the end of the RdR3.0.  4:55:54 is the timer.  Not a pedestrian ride.  Strava Suffer score for slower teams was in the Extreme range.  And the heat was nuts (in the woods when we were moving slowly), it melted our little VT Ice Cube.

Those green letters.  Mark Louis Francis Nicholson.

I'd like to think it was his spirit and memory that I carry with me that kept me mechanical free during the ride.  But it was probably just routine prep and running reasonably bomb-proof and proven old stuff.

Still miss my friend Mark. He was never not smiling, never not a fountain of joy, never failed to light up the space around him.

Thanks for tagging along yesterday Mark. It was fun the whole time. Such a blast.  Two wheel drifting on tires pumped way the hell up in the lose dusty single track. Following suicidal moves by Chipstick on the railbed, totally crashing but then saving it and riding it out w/o slowing...  So good.  Such a good time.

Heddwch
G

(for those who might want a bit more background on Mark, Brent put a few good links together: here, or here, or here)

RdR3.0

What a day.  Brutal. Legs are destroyed. Half the time of a PBP ride but easily as hard or worse.  Drilling it.  The whole way.  So hot too (relative to what I'm used to).

Forgot to start the garmin right out of the gun (waiting for recalculating before just giving up and letting Jerry call out the cues for a bit) so there is a weee bit of time missing.

Strava: http://app.strava.com/activities/6807987

Photos (i'll write words later at some point - so destroyed right now)

A bit of rain on the way up, but all blue skies to the north!

chilies = so good

Link drop because there's good info on chilies, and why they are good for you.  Granted I'm living in the most white bread taste part of the country. Baked cod, fluff, white clam chowder...  pretty lame and flavorless palate for the most part (regionally at least).  Many natives (are there any left) can't even tolerate a few Scoville units (and if you check the wiki page on them you'll see my pepper of choice ranges from 100,000 to 350,000 unites).

Anyway.  A nice green chili sauce recipe AND some bullet point unreferenced  but mostly pretty good review on all the benefits from getting some heat on your food, and in your body.

Spicy - it does a body good.

http://www.apexnutritionllc.com/fuelrightblog/2012/04/10/tuesdays-healthy-fuel-recipe-homemade-green-chili-sauce/

leg wasting wed ride

wasn't feeling it much but the weather did clear, and Fox said he was going, and shoot I know it does some good, even if it doesn't make me faster it helps clear the mind.

Fox shows and just as 5pm is rolling around Chris #2 shows.  Super skinny college kid (like me in college) and looking for some leg stretching going into Battenkill.  Three is a good number.  Rotating through, drilling it.

I was still the strongest and didn't have much trouble taking all the sprint points, but the guys still made me work hard, hit my max HR, pushed myself wicked hard on the second rise after the Pine street sprint, and then attacked Rocky Hill from just at 500m (500 is a long way to start a sprint).  Fox's drive train gave him away on that sprint.  He went to come around at the spot where I usually attack but I could hear his drivetrain squeaking when he jumped and I was able to add some power and motor away.

Hillside much the same. Skinny Chris attacked and set a pretty solid pace but when it dipped down he was unable to capitalize much on gravity but still kept going but blew pretty sky high and Fox jumped and I went around him and unloaded...  but soft pedaled over the top by the mailbox with the gap I had.

The nice thing about the ride is that it is short, but there is actually not a ton of rest.  The only section that we take easy is basically from the top of Rocky Hill to the turn onto Hillside.  Everything else is full gas, rotating through or sprinting.  The three of us, including a couple miles of getting through EP into Seekonk at a leisurely pace and we still avg right about 20mph, hr was no where near race average but 143 for a short mid week ride with some chatting and chilling in a few spots and lots of drafting isn't too bad.

It is what it is.  It was fun.

Good company, hard ride. Without the trailer I just headed right home and managed to get there a bit earlier than when I head back to the office to hitch it and ride home.

BUT

The ride in this morning and the whole time on the bike on the leg wasting wed ride I felt like a praying mantis after being on the Klein for a week or two.  And the drops in those bars I have are pretty much f'n useless.  But they are wide enough, and it is a CX bike.  No matter so much, just an observation.  Klein is faster though.  No question.  As it should be on the road.

enough musing - now, can i break the cycle and actually get some sleep tonight?
we'll see

heddwch
G

Silver and Light

Watching that again just a few minutes ago...  and reflecting a bit...

signature...  with the darkroom prints... i definitely had a distinctive signature to my images.

five good videos

beans, beats, bikeracing

coffee beans of course, Brabantse Pijl, and some Deadmau5 radio station on the Pandora.

These guys are just impressive.  But then they are #1 talented, #2 professional. And they still crash hitting turns at speed.  Wow.  Such a huge difference racing that way vs racing a crit/kermesse.

I got a bunch of grief for not elaborating more on my race(s) on Saturday here.  But really, what more is there to say about the race itself? not much but I can see if I remember it.

Maybe I should crank some Metallica to get the memory refreshed. But I'm getting a PMA boost from these beats and the race.  Don't want to fuck with a good combo. Granted this is not uninterrupted, as always. Fits and starts, a couple minutes here, there, between support issues.

new markets

open the moment the beard goes into short length...

after last week

my brain done essploded sunday night...

in spectacular fashion

briefly

since it is Zombie Jesus day tomorrow i'm not going to have much time for a bit to write...

Race 1 okay - had fun, chilled, felt good.  Last two laps were brutal. In the top 4 of the bunch chasing 3 guys up the road with Ned blocking for the other COX guy with the two Expo dudes up the road.  Then hit the last stretch and got slightly out of position and a gap or two opened up between the last two turns and I had to jump around a couple guys and then we hit the wind, winding it up but the legs were juiced at that point.  Mystic Velo guy rubbed Ned's wheel and went down, I thought Paul was going to run over his head but he pulled Pozzato and avoided him but that forced me out wide into the wind a bit more.  Paul wound up 8th, and I hit 11th with the kid in the USA shorts pimping me for the 10th spot I think.

Felt great.  Rolled one lap cool down.  Headed to the car, switched jerseys (different number) put on different gloves and got back in line.  And the race was off.  Legs were dead.  And the wind was picking up and three nights in a row of not sleeping plus negativity of yesterday's stress and the early morning and what ever excuse I can toss in there had me hanging in the back with the rest of the guys who had just raced.  A few of them managed to hang on but I got popped after about 15 minutes, and then got pulled as I got lapped.  Bill Dolan said the vote was 2-1 to pull me, he said he wouldn't say who wanted to leave me out there to suffer.

Not regretting anything.  It was a good day racing.

Back to building bikes.

heddwch
G

writing

Words

as they flow

document the process

of thought

alone

Are you ready?

A little too much Pharmstrong in the video, it kind of ruins it for me. But ignoring that, it doesn't suck.

wasted legs wednesday

Leg burner tonight.

Lots of stress with busted microscopes all day, fortunately all resolved before the ride.

Started the ride off with a flat.  Made it home without another one.  Not on my tires, but a flat when the group is a total of two people, well, it might as well have been mine.  No matter though, ride was good, drilled it, hit a few sprint lines felt okay for being way under the calorie count today.

I'm sure you've read the 9 commuter thing by now.  If not, a good chuckle.

I'm over thinking Saturday already. So not good.  Need to just stay focused, positive and have fun. Nothing else. have to keep repeating that to myself. over. and over. and over.  Nothing else matters.

The ride tonight was sans bottle.  Probably not a good idea since with one or two exceptions I was drilling it at the front the whole ride and then sprinting myself to the lines.  A few of the lines Fox edge close enough to push me to my limit.  It hurt so good.

Off the bike tomorrow it looks like.  Might head to a studio to fulfill a request to photograph the beard before it gets chopped off.

I did talk to my father today, he was disappointed to hear that i was going to be cutting it off... but conceded, yes, i could always just grow it again.  This was a few months (okay maybe 4) of growth.  No big deal.  4 months lasts about as long as a dogs fart hangs around. Seems more and more trivial as i get older.

It is sad that Ned ain't gonna have his massive bushy beard that he blind sided me with at NBX CX.  Guess it is my turn for the massive facial hair display.  I'd love to pull a Uri on Saturday.  Not sure that's in the cards though.  we'll see.  Staying positive, relaxed, just there to have fun.

I haven't even had time to read - any of the tabs today. No open tabs time.  And right now my eyes are heavy, speed reading web pages as fast as they can load just seems overwhelming right now.

There has been an acceptance of the fact that i'm racing old wheels.  Old fashioned non-aero heavy and all that.  BUT at least the bearings roll smoother and with less friction than any new cartridge bearing hub.  That's gotta count for something.  I will make a concession to speed and take the Durano PLUS tires off for the race.

Okay so i opened a few - and this one never fails to make me smile.

heddwch
G

not gonna happen here

30 days of April nothing.

No 30 days of blogging

I screwed up the whole potential of 30 days of riding by not riding yesterday.

Christine Fort's got a great idea for 30 days of poetry over on G+ totally digging that.  Poetry is good.  I need more poetry to read.  Used to devour it.  Now, not so much.  Go figure.

Yesterday was the first day completely off the bike since the 16th.  so tired though.  Can feel it seeping into the bones, so to speak.

Not a great sign going into the Chris Hinds race.  I've got some decent form it would seem.  Despite eating f'n everything I can get my hands on lately, I'm holding under 190 by a couple pound margin.  Still swinging from 185-189 or so.  Totally acceptable daily/weekly variation.  Not trending up or down.  Pretty stable since hitting the 185poundage.  Yes, total clydesdale at heart.  But hoping never to be one again.  Learning to make power w/o the weight.
Legs responded this morning.  Managed a nice 200 M sprint from a standstill with the trailer right into the wind topping out at 26mph.  Reasonably solid for towing the trailer.

one thing that I'm noticing is I'm pushing further and further into "oh shit that hurt" land than I have before.  I don't know if it is just periodic sprint thing but I'm finding it odd that after an interval or smackdown sprint my brain turns back on when it is over and goes WTF did you just do, and how the F did you make that happen.

Very strange. I'd be lying if I said that Chris Hinds wasn't a big race for me.  Shouldn't be, first Ninigret right?  Just Ninigret.  But man, one day, some day I'd like to bust out and do more than ride around working for teammates and having fun and rolling in w/o effort in the bunch, or getting blown out the back after going thermo nuke.

We'll see what happens.  A lot is going to be riding on how much sleep I get.  Not rest, no, sleep.  Based on  being old and shit I'm forecasting that it will be tough to be fully rested for Saturday AM, esp given that the kid's classmates unloaded some Strep on the youngest on Friday, and who knows what else is going around.  Everyone at my wife works with is sick today, but they are at work anyway.  Awesome people.  Really.  Awesome.  Take a f'n sick day if you're actually sick.  really.  Oh well.  Garlic doping here we come.

Beard is still going strong.  Mark gets back from Aussie land in two days, might just have to hang onto it at least till he gets back, since it is just a few days more.  Weather isn't officially warm yet though.  But the pressure is mounting and the threats of scissors in my sleep are becoming more serious.  Beard is wearing out the welcome it seems.  That said I've grown attached to it.  Will be tough to say good by to this massive great big bushy beard.

well - that's all the time i have today
heddwch
G

They be building up

The posts I want to write.

The whole creme/taint condition catch 22.

Now I have a good coffee dialog resulting from Twitter this morning - it brewed and stewed in my head on the ride in.

Also on the ride in a don't to this to get faster stronger post.

Like don't decide to put one 20# rock in a trailer and ride all the way to work with an extra set of clothes tons of food and too much stuff in a heavier than average trailer when it there is a strong headwind.  And by all means don't shift into the big ring for the whole ride esp with the hills.

That and I just realized I pulled a double.

Two weeks in a row, no car.  Which also means two week (since the 16th) that I have pedaled the bike.  Only one of those days was without a trailer (Monday's 128 mile ride), two of those days were smackdowns one was the velosprints.

I got some sweet pictures Wed night that haven't made it over here yet.

Getting backlogged.

oh well.

no want for content.  Content that I want to write.  Content that anyone wants to read? Not my problem, not my motivation.  Just need to find time.
Hmm... ain't it funny how that works.

heddwch
G

Good stuff

FINALLY

I saw Brants on the way home tonight.  Haven't seen a single one all winter with the bike path closed.  No rides along the waters edge.  No birds.

On the way home from the Smackdown tonight they were there.  I snapped a few shots off.

Was awesome seeing them.

I've missed them this year.

the phoenix...

Rises again.  The Quantum Pro has been resurrected.  Okay fine, it never died, just went into a Coma after the last road race last year.  Hmm that would have been Mystic Velo on the 15th of May last year.  Long time to be hanging from the rafters.

Took a bit to find the bits removed from it.  First the Reynolds Carbon brake pads that I sold with the Reynolds Strikes (had to pay for CX season somehow) were removed, but I didn't put the old pads, and the cassette was removed, and well both have been sort of MIA lately.

A bit ago I did find all the bits of the cassette (chain is still under 0.75 on the park tool for stretch) mixed in with a 10sp one.  Easy enough to sort out.  And last night I got ready to steal pads from the Tektro 720s to put in there and I found one block, then two, three and finally dug some more and found the 4th.  Funny that.  They were right where I had put them and thought that I put them, but some how the light or something was right and I saw them.  Yeah I should clean up the kuck piles.  I'd rather ride bikes or get paid to work on bikes or cook food for the family.  Maybe I'll get to it sooner than later.

End result? It is functional, it carried me into work (with the trailer even), but man these bars are wicked strange.  Old Mavic 350s.  Yes.  Mavic 350s.  They be old and stuff.  Like me.  Old but still functional.

Feels strange to have my knees near a top tube instead of brushing the top tube with my calf (on the blue, yes maybe the bike is too small).  Enough drop that sprinting in the hoods isn't a handicap, but yes, I can still get in the drops.

No bottle cages for tonight.  Fox didn't ride with one last week "Who needs water for an hour long ride?" Good point.  That and I didn't want to swap shit around or put the ejecto-cage on the seat tube with a few of the rougher roads we ride on.  Just took the wheels off the blue, swapped cassette and boom, in business.

The bike actually felt pretty might spot on, saddle might be a tiny bit too far forward, but not by much, reach and drop feel good.  But after 8 hours with the new (2010 shimano) levers these old 7700 hoods are strange, but not foreign.

A big question for tonight is how the legs are.  The bike is ready to go, but do I have any snap after monday's slog in the wind?  Tough to say.

Weather looks to be clearing though. Which is good. I forgot the front headlight AND the selfish fender, hoping i don't get striped on the way home.  Better than showing up at work with a dripping crack.

heddwch
G

of note from this AM

one incident stood out this morning...

heading in, past the school, I have to go from the right lane to the next lane over so I can go straight.  Problem is there isn't really room for cars to go around me and they often back up in the 200-400 meter stretch there.

Today wasn't much different.  normal day.

But there is this taurus there, I merged over and he pulls up along side and matches pace and out of the corner of my eye I notice his window rolling down...

then he draws even with me, i look over at him and he rolls his window up without saying anything and heads off north.

first thought: this massive amount of facial hair scared him.
second thought: maybe he rolled his window down and realized it was too cold to start something (i love cold winters that keep the motorists from rolling them down and shouting)

I get that a bit, a few honks shaking of heads, esp with the trailer.

this morning was just rather interesting.  maybe the beard is getting to be a bit too scary.

heddwch
G

The March Madness Ride

Yesterday was nuts.  Plain and simple.

Looking at the calendar a week out, the only days I had options on for meeting the challenge of riding to Boston once a month until CX season starts were Monday and Tuesday.  Monday seemed the better choice. Seemed it at the end of last week.  Mostly because the wind should have been pretty calm to start the day and Tuesday looked to just be f'n windy all day.

The plan was to ride up and have coffee with Nick (lunch just makes you fat™) in Cambridge, then swing over and finally try the Barrington Roaster's coffee over in Fox Point.

Team mate Dean agreed to join me.  Dean's a wicked cool crazy amazing guy. Professor of Sculpture at RISD,  and not a shabby bike rider.  He's headed up to Battenkill because that's home turf, and he had the day to spend on the bike and figured why not.

I was headed up to battle the wind regardless of company.  Dean tagged along well prepared (couple sandwiches, blocks, bars, money, tubes, tires) he was rolling on a sweet painted 'Nago with Campy, with some Ultremo DD rubber.  And he's not terribly short.  A passable draft.

All good things.

One thing in the back of my mind leading up to it was the fact that I had ridden the bike every day since the 16th.  All with the trailer, sometimes full of rocks, but usually not empty, groceries some days, stuff others, rocks, and then there was the Velosprints on the 19th, Smackdown on Wed.  Saturday AM I was late, so I blitzed it to work.  Worked both Sat and Sun at the shop.  Hit the store Sun AM and loaded the trailer up, for some reason I didn't want to have an easy ride home.

PVD-BOS-PVD march edition (brief)

today:
long ride with +dean snyder 

Providence RI up to Cambridge to meet +Nick Czerula for coffee.

Then headed to Barrington Roasters there on Congress (Fox Point), and home.

Left at 7:40am, Got home at 5:50pm

stats from the old fashioned bike computer:
128.5 miles
7:57:05 pedaling time (yeah 7 hrs 57 mins)

If you are in Southern New England today, well it is windy. Not just a little windy. Like 20+ gusting to 40 mph windy. From the N over to the NW. The way up was all the way in the wind. 

Not an easy day. But man, what a day on the bike.

time to eat all the food, actually not so hungry, mostly just f'n tired.  And wow... the wind.

Forsythia in Bloom

I've been watching the buds swell for a few days now, this morning is the first morning I would say they are in bloom.  I like data and would be curious to see a log for when a small local population, just to see how their timing.  Degree day information is out there as is daylight, but botanical triggers for flower opening, but those are less tangible metrics.  There is something a bit more beautiful and variable about tracking flower blooming.

Just a random short thought sipping a cup of coffee looking out the kitchen window over the sink at the Forsythia covered in yellow flowers.

I tried to get a snapshot, but the overcast morning light and shooting through the window are a less than successful combination.

Another botanical pondering recently was about the beard.  Winter beard must be more like a Blue Spruce than an Englemann spruce.  Two very similar trees.  Some have suggested that there is continuous variation from one to the other with significant overlap and potential ability to cross-pollinate (as in they aren't distinct species in the sexual (reproductive) isolation sense.  There is a practical difference that works to isolate them, the timing of bud/flower breaking.

Englemann spruce (Picea englemannii) tends to set bud as soon as it "warms up" once a certain degree day accumulation has been reached and the daylight is appropriate - the vasculature starts up and the cells in the buds begin to swell.  They are all tiny and small cells for plants, no vacuoles, meristematic by definition.  The initial expansion isn't driven by division, but by cell growth.  Division happens, but not initially.

The bud scales do a great job of insulating and protecting the vegetative of reproductive bud inside, but Englemann spruce is a high altitude, rocky mountain species.  It breaks dormancy aggressively, at first warmth more or less.  And in the native habitat that works, esp with such a short growing season.  If it waits to make sure it is for real, it misses out on critical days or weeks of growth.  This same thing makes it terribly unsuitable to grow anywhere else.  You see it in trees planted at low elevation, early bud sets routinely get killed by spring frosts.  Trees that primarily cue off temperature get in trouble like that.  They wind up ugly and stunted.  Not the majestic specimens they can be in their native habitat.

The Blue Spruce (Picea pungens) is different. This is a clever tree with a mechanism that allows it to succeed where the P englemannii fails.  The trees wait.   Patiently.  They know at lower elevations they have a bit more warmth, water, soil, nutrients, they can grow faster than their counterparts up higher.  And they've figured out that the first warm day never signals the end of the winter.

They wait.

The know it will get cold again.  And finally they break bud and go like gang busters.  By May the female cones are erect, pink and dripping with resin and ready to exude their pollination drop.  But sometimes they hold out a bit longer or go a bit earlier.  I found that out the hard way one field season collecting female cones.  Timing is variable.  And thus I needed an extra year to collect the data that I needed.

And in a few too many words, my winter beard is going to be more like the Blue Spruce.  A bit patient, not ready to reveal the face hiding under the fur. Easter may be too long to wait, but unlike the Spruce trees I can look at the long range forecast and see that we've got a 20°F morning coming up next week.  Would be a shame to have to put a balaclava on for the first time all year now.

Time for a bit more coffee, get cleaned up and then a slow ride into the bike shop for the day.

Heddwch
G

nanoscape

Tried a bit of SEM therapy today.

Imaged some of the Zanconato milling scraps:

http://nanoscape.tumblr.com/

oops i lied

well call it a bad forecast of the end of the week.

No Rocks today and a sunset

Just a couple shots.

Ditched the rocks, and even finally hosed the dirt off the Blue that has been there since the last big ride.  Of course now the BB bearings are crunching.  Guess I need to order another set of BB30 bearings.  The boxes of tires and tubes worked well enough, rode home w/o them though.

Rode home after sunset.  Worked a bit at the shop tonight after the other work and well the sunset was pretty spectacular.  Weather is insanely hot, for March at least.  I'm not complaining, just observing.  I shouldn't be riding to work in short sleeves and shorts at this time of year and arriving sweaty. Not right, but hey, it is what it is, could be 35 and raining, I'll take this over that.

Heddwch
G

Wed AM breakfast

And what was sitting in my belly at the start of the ride.  Yeah I ate a pint of my final mix at 3:30pm, a mere 90 min before the start of the smackdown.  That or be famished on the ride.  Catch 22 situation.

Right so what was it?

This

Except not quite that.

I didn't have scottish oats but the Bob's Red Mill Scottish ones I tried at Bend Nats were pretty awesome.

I used some steel cut oats.  I toasted them on high heat with the butter till it smelled toasty and the butter was all absorbed.  Certainly could use Coconut fat or other veggie fat to make it vegan.  Cooked it up nice and toasty, popped in some water, brought it to a boil, and covered and set it on the back of the stove for the night.

Best to add a touch of salt with the water.  Why not.  Helps with flavor, esp if you use unsalted butter (if you use unsalted butter make sure you're purchasing butter w/o the flavor added - if it needs flavor the butter is shit quality - not real food IOW).

For my 'toppings'

A bit of Bob's Red Mill ground flax seed (store in fridge)
Rasins
Sugar (brown or vegan usually)
dark chocolate peanut butter 

I added a touch of whole milk at the end of the morning cooking.

But simple. Melt butter, put in oats, crank heat, toast, add water, bring to boil, turn off heat, cover, put on back of stove, wake up in the am, crank heat back up to boil, finish cooking (couple minutes) and dress it and eat it.

So

good

yum

but a bit dense to eat 90 min before the smackdown

Smackdown decompression

Thanks to a wrong turn I managed to claim 3 of the 4 sprint lines.  We were back across the bridge 68 min after leaving.  That includes a mellow cool down for the last couple miles after the State line sprint.

Today was a bit crazy, felt dead.  Probably eating a bit of food too close to the ride.  

We has a bit of a shake up in the attendees.  Good showing by Brown, couple other folks, Myles, Brier, the Fox showed up too.  A couple guys I didn't get their names of, one of them made it to the end.

No Kellogg or Eddy G, two of the strongest guys out there last week.  Kellogg was equally instrumental at driving the pace in the beginning and shared pulls with me. So smooth.  No Kellogg.  No Derdowski (another very smooth strong rider), no Syl either (climbs pretty damn well for a Mt biker).  Ed pushed the pace at the end and won all but the Rocky Hill sprint that I did.

Foggy ride in

Mark Nicholson Smackdown March edition tonight (5pm Waterman Circle).

Rode the blue in (Klein is still out of action).  With the trailer.  Unloaded and on the fast bike it felt pretty effortless.

maybe the cool fog helped.

We'll see what tonight brings as far as legs and riders and weather.  Rumors of 80°F.

Couple shots from this morning (untouched - crooked horizon and lots of pixels)

Rocks rocks rocks

So yesterday I weighed them.  15, 20, 20, 25 lbs.  The rocks that were in the trailer on the ride home Saturday night.

Or was it Sunday.  I don't remember now.

With velosprints yesterday I headed in with an unloaded trailer.  Okay loaded with clothes, lunch, stuff.  But no rocks.  The ride home was made fun by the headwind and tagging along with a friend.  Mostly trying to keep up.

This morning, well it looks like I'll be off the bike Thursday and Friday so that leaves today and tomorrow for some work, and tomorrow is smackdown (5pm Waterman Circle) so rocks it is.  Got the leg speed yesterday, today was torque.

But I didn't put all three in there.  I left out a 20 pounder. Three of them only.  That was enough to make me work pretty hard on the hills, hard enough that I was not just at the limit with the low gear up the grade, but heavy enough that I still could create a trailer load of torque.

Glassy calm on the way in, that was nice.

Popped up to grab some Turmeric and rescue a waterbottle left at the Ballet studio last night, with the trailer, up the hill, after lunch.  Felt good.  But again work.

Work good.  Work as in physics not paycheck. I was doing that today, first with the regular stuff, then a whole lot of sitting around first waiting for the service engineer to show up, then for him to finish.  Oh well.  Sometimes things are more mellow than others.  It balances out the insane days (like tomorrow and Thursday are lining up to be).

Headed home, short sleeves.  legit shortsleeves.  no arm warmers or knee warmers.  And I was even sweating with that.  This was no borderline lets just wear them because.  it was warm.

So I'm cranking up the entrance hill at the Vet parkway and one of the Brown kids rolls up along side.  No idea that the path is still closed so here I am, dragging sixty pounds of rocks in the trailer, into a 10-20mph headwind.  At least he's just out for a mellow ride.  So I show him the way around, how to connect the bike path with the closure.

Except he's on a sweet Scott plastic bike with wicked fancy HED wheels.  And well yeah, I'm on the Croll with the trailer full of rocks.

But let me back up. Just for a second.

Before I hit the washington bridge, I passed this:

And thought, damn there are some nice rocks in there, they would make great trailer weights.

What? Are you listening to yourself? You're thinking about more rocks? Adding MORE? But those do look good.  Nice and dense, either some granite or gneiss.  Look good.  Obviously there are a few that are more than 100#s and the trailer has a published limit of 100#s.  I wasn't going to add any more for the ride home (good thing in retrospect), but I thought it was funny enough that I thought about it that I turned around and took a picture.

Rocks for brains.

Anyway.  So we head down around past the construction site and then we start up the rollers to the top of the hill by the mental health hospital.  First one is long and gradual, second one is steep.  I'm at the limit on the first one, but I'm talking with him, answering a few questions as he lightly spins up.  We hit the second roller and my HR is pegged and it is all i can do to keep up.

We hit the red light and I roll in front and set tempo into the wind.  18-22mph the whole stretch, HR slowly creeps up and I'm cooked by the time we hit the Dairy Bee.

Good over all soreness fatigue level in the legs right now.  The other thing is, hauling the trailer with that much weight is a great core and arm workout climbing out of the saddle.  And it is specific. And that's not a bad thing.  Although unless a miracle happens and I find the 9sp cassette I took off the Klein Quantum Pro tonight I'll be gear limited for the smack down tomorrow. 46x12 should be plenty of gear...  we'll see though.  I would like to get the thing up and running though.  Esp after this morning's twitter fest with the Klein Adept hybrid/flatbarroadbike/touring/hybrid.  It was cool.

So yeah.  Rocks. I might have to spend some time converting this trailer into cargo specific before too long, and re-working some of the fabric, it is getting pretty tired.  Couple blown out zippers aren't helping matters either.

Taking the rocks out for tomorrow's ride in though.  Still with the trailer though.  I'll try not to flip it (not as stable when empty).

Time to be making the food for the troops.  Right now I'm thinking pasta, sound good?  It does to me.

Heddwch and creigiau am byth
G

please pass the coffee

How the heck did I survive from 2008 until 2011 w/o drinking coffee regularly?  I'm totally and completely dependant on it again, which while slightly scary is mitigated by the fact that it is plant sourced and so far as long as I don't go David Grohl and drink multiple pots every day I should be okay.  Sleeping is fine and all that so there's that.  Day off? What?  Weekend? Worked right through it.  Yeah, you hear people say they work two jobs for their kids, that's me.  At least neither are crazy high stress, and I enjoy them both.

Taking a rare lunch out of the office today.  Heading to McFadden's for the Velosprints.  The thing I was in the paper about.  That cover shot.  Yeah that's today at lunch.  Normally it is straight through here, on call, answering questions while my lunch gets cold or ignored.  Which is fine.  I'm used to it, doesn't bother me.  Tunes, internet, food, answering questions, it works.

If it wasn't for the bike commute I might mind it a bit more.  The ride in and the promise of the ride home get me through the day in the office w/o windows, in the basement where I never know what is going on outside.

Yesterday's commute was nice, on the weekend there are more people out there on bikes on the bike path. I almost prefer the current detour on the surface street with the bike path closed as there are no walkers, joggers, dogs on leashes in the street.  Just cars.  Going in my direction, some 2x as fast as I am, some a bit faster, but mostly far more predictable than the bike path traffic.

Twitter's been lighting up discussing/complaining/observing the changes out there that the new season is bringing.  "We" used to have the roads/paths/lockers to our selves.  Cold shitty weather is "our" weather.  We ride year round, and when it gets nice, all the rookies, amateurs and part timers come out and mess it up.

Yes. It is awesome that they are on their bike.  Getting outside, getting some exercise, riding to work, for fun, for whatever.  Awesome.  Great stuff.

But this time of year, us regulars, are reminded of how nice it is when the weather sucks and we have our bike path all to ourselves.  Or the Bike lane.  When we can ride, stop at stop lights, yield at stop signs, go with the flow w/o having someone mess it all up.

I was close to being t'boned a couple times this morning at 4 way stops by other people on bikes.  Really.  Come on.  At least make an effort to appear like you could stop if I had been 2' further through the intersection.  I guess they are lucky that my brakes work and I know how to use them.

Frustrating but at the same time, I wish more people would be able to find the joy I do commuting by bike.  Yes, it would mean it is more crowded out there.  But after a few months everyone will be used to it and how it works and won't be as much of an idiot.  That or I will slowly be desensitized to the stupidity and my tolerance will increase to the point of acceptance.

I really would like to see more people out there.   The bike path south of us was a mad house yesterday with the weather as warm and sunny as it was.  Like 4th of July crazy from what I heard.  So many different users, walkers, joggers, runners and then the various speeds of cyclists, from too fast to too slow and everything in between.

So many people with bikes on the back of the cars going south on the road while I was going north.  Why can't they just get on their bikes at their house?  Why drive to a ride.  I really don't like driving to a ride.  To a race is barely tolerable and I only rationalize it to myself because I'm driving that ancient rusty race wagon burning Biodiesel (20-100% bioD) getting 35-50 mpg (city -highway, again, it is old and imperfect, like me).

I'm trying not to think too much about the TJROW gang.  Getting fed all that Lim and Biju food.  I might have to try making those rice cakes sometime.  But hey - hopefully they can all live up to the promise and not just turn all this fundraising and riding into a big exclusive frat party bike ride from BOS to DC (trying to be optimistic and not letting my jealousy color anything towards the negative - so wish I was riding with them honestly).

It is getting on close to sunburn season.  I'll get a post for the taint and sun at some point.  I know.  I keep saying I'll write the taint care for chipstick but it hasn't happened yet.  suncare/sunscreen might happen right after, or before, or since everyone here has probably heard me talk about it before maybe never, but hell, it is important...  Spin time.  Be good.

Heddwch
G

fired up

If that doesn't get the blood flowing, what a way to prep for a commute in. MSR, what a race.

Hearing King Kelly call the race on saturday was pretty awesome too. there's magic in them bike racing.

Rocks for brains

Is what everyone seems to think seeing this photo.

That pair of rocks I picked up on Wednesday after the Smackdown when taking the sunset shot are bookended by a pair I picked up tonight on the side of the path.  random odd and scarred by the mower blades laying there at the start of the path.  and they were heavy.

So i have a bag with change of clothes and shoes, my backpack with thermos, stainless mug, laptop, and assorted shit, and then the rocks.  Heavy f'n rocks.  The trailer hitch is pulled basically straight down there was so much tongue weight even with the largest one sitting on the frame in the back cargo area of the trailer.

It was slow going up the hill and actually hard work on the flat sections too (good bit of drag in that thing i guess).

I don't particularly like the gym.  I don't particularly have the time to go somewhere to work out and lift weights even if i did enjoy working out, inside, with other people.

With the Velosprints tomorrow I'm leaving the rocks out of the trailer for the commute to the bike shop today.  Two weeks ago I did 5 4-6 min 53x12 standing max torque intervals in the middle of the 60-90 min on the trainer watching TV and I could definitely tell i wasn't in form for the roller racing.  Still didn't post a shitty time, and it got me in the paper, but I'm thinking today, as a bike day, will be mellow, slow and easy.  Although I probably have to pick up a few things from the store on the way home, esp since I'm not doing a weekend food run, so that will add a bit of weight for the ride home and standing all day certainly isn't the same as feet up eating, but hey...  life, it is what it is.  The benefits seem to be there.  I'm going to see if I can get 5 runs in tomorrow too.  Hopefully i'll be able to walk after the 5th one tomorrow if i make it that far.

I've been doing remarkably well at building speed and strength lately but I can feel that it is going to be more of a challenge adding weekends to the work schedule on top of the normal week.  Have to do it, opportunity is there, need is there, and yeah, I'm one of those who is working two jobs to be able to let his kids follow their passion.  Oldest is going "en pointe" and that means toe shoes, rumor is they aren't cheap and they don't last long.  Man is she excited about it though.

The day has started off on the cold side, but there isn't a cloud in the bright blue sky and from the looks of it very little wind at the moment.  It is supposed to warm up.

Winter beard is in danger... weather is getting warmer.  Now it is just a game of chicken and timing.  Can I make it to April?  Do I want to make it to April?  It would be cool to line up at Ninigret with it but I think that's going to be pushing it too far.  Looks like this week has a packed schedule.  Going to have to be next week.  If Chipstick is reading he has a second chance, to hop on the GeWilli road train (Aussie reference btw) Firefly to RSC (leg two for the March edition of PVD-BOS-PVD).  Last week in March, looking like Monday or Tuesday at this point.  Will winter beard make it that far? we'll see.  We'll see.

MOAH COFEETS time, gotta make some FRESH POTS and then get some pedaling in and some bikes built and sold.

heddwch
G

The Morning After and a few links

RSS peeps - you can click through, or not, whatever, if this doesn't get you to check the linkage you'll be missing out on keeping your index shifters working properly (unless you have SRAM, in that case just break them like resultsboy does and get new ones when they stop working right), missing out on a killer write up about Cilantro including references to a book that I never read and am not sure I want to, then you have some killer shit that Steve wrote, and after last night, that stuff he wrote sinks home a bit more (RUN ON SENTENCE FTW - fuck it who needs a period, they just get in the way #TWSS <-- had to be said)

Oh and some stress and the last bit being the most important - but then if you're RSS'n this you're probably already hooked into the #TJROW thing just 'cause that's how connected you are.  (it is lunch - I'm going to be writing for a bit - lots of words most likely - oh well - some days you write - some days you don't)

ouch, i needed that

Tough ride tonight. A very solid showing for the humble PVD.  Good mix of Brown Collegiate racers and old dudes.  That Eddy kid has a motor on him.   Dang.

Felt pretty awesome.  We rolled back into the city with a bit of attrition.  The legend himself Kipp Bradford showed up on his Cyfac, but bailed after the Pine street sprint and headed back early, electing to skip the insanity that was to follow shortly.

Curious about the ride? I dunno if these are visible or ya gotta be strava enabled or what, but here's the ride from two different people that were there:
http://app.strava.com/rides/5217881
and
http://app.strava.com/rides/5221341

The KOM they 'won/tied' was the only sprint line I won tonight.  That said I turned myself inside out riding the whole time, no saving it for the sprints, if I had it? I had it.  And even coming up Hillside I lost contact for a touch, fell back a bit but still managed to keep Dave Kellogg and Eddy and the rest visible.

Dave's riding a brand new beautifully painted (by his brother) Spectrum.  Di2 with a slick mounting location for the factory shimano battery and internal wiring.  Really neat bike.  That and I forget just how skinny pure climber types are.  I counter jumped his attack on Rocky Hill and won the sprint from Eddy, only though because I knew where the line was and he wasn't quite sure.  I probably won't be so fortunate, but hey he got the other three sprint lines.

Fox kicked ass and hung with the gang.  Did better than I did up Hillside, but then he did run a 17:30 5k on Saturday.  I unloaded when we hit Read.  Sat behind Kellogg there as we turned but #1 he is almost not worth drafting, and #2 I was coasting in his draft and hell I like that downhill run and a couple minutes at 33-34 mph is always fun.

The three old dudes who wore their Prov Velo Club kit did not get dropped.  Syl (mt biker dude), Derdowski and me.  Eddy, Yi Peng, and one other Brown kid hung on, Andrew, Fox the two free agents and the unstoppable Dave made up the group of 9 that rolled across the Henderson together.  The other's either got dropped or in Bradford's case bowed out due to prior engagements to return to.

What a ride though.  Ripped my damn legs off.  I rode dumb for a guy who was trying to win the sprints but,  I haven't hit the cramping from exertion in a while like I did there.  So good.

Couple shots.  First one is a Beard Documentary:

I got to Waterman Grill a bit before everyone else and heck what else do you do, take pictures of course.  I had meant to get a photo of the group to post, but I forgot.  Oops.  Next week maybe.

After the ride I headed back to the office, picked up the trailer, put on the LS jersey on top of the armwarmers, put some knee warmers on (should have worn them) - it was getting cold, and headed home.

Sunset.  Perfect timing.  Stopped at the one good clear treeless vantage point and shot a series of images as the sun was emerging below the cloud line.  This is the one I liked the best tonight:

From the bluff overlooking the river.

And there were two big flat rocks there, ah hell I should put them in the trailer or someone is just going to roll them down the hill.  I put them in the trailer.  Just what I needed.  More weight.

Rolling along I grabbed a quick panda shot:

Yes the Gripshift/SRAM trekking reflective stickers are a new addition to the commuter helmet, found em the other day.

Was a good ride.

A good day.

If you're in the area on Wed next week, join us. I'll try to rip your legs off.  But mostly thanks to those who showed up and did rip my legs off.  That was awesome.

Heddwch™
G