But it is official, i've crossed over officially into the old man club. Granted this is just a 10 year probationary period. That 50 mark might be the official old man point. Or maybe it is further down the road yet still.
Either way I survived both my sister's wedding, as crazy as it was, and my birthday.
If it wasn't for family i'd have no friends. Small party with my brother's family last night. It was pretty good actually. And while I didn't quite drink 40 beers last night, I certainly consumed many more than 40oz (don't worry it was mostly light beer - more water than anything else - shouldn't get me more than a pound or two heavier).
With all that drama behind and only school schedules and bills to figure out things look some what more optimistic, certainly with less sturm and drang coming.
Only piece of the puzzle to fall in place is some actual training. The bike path was working on those deserted mornings but now with so much debris it is a slower ride. Need to make time for the TT effort, not to mention second job. Simple stuff though. That's the simple stuff.
A bit more coffee and then time to hit the day running. Or some variation of movement faster than a crawl.
heddwch
G
Wednesday, August 31, 2011
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Bandit CX race
wrong end of the year but hey - i'll spread the word
Maybe you've heard, maybe not?
http://skiward.com/cylocross/
Bandit CX race there on the 3rd (sept) from noon until 3pm
I won't be there, just spreading the word.
Maybe you've heard, maybe not?
http://skiward.com/cylocross/
Bandit CX race there on the 3rd (sept) from noon until 3pm
I won't be there, just spreading the word.
survived
both the trip out west and the hurricane it seems
power was on when we got back, and hadn't been off long enough for anything in the freezer to melt.
making the biggest challenge showing up with no coffee in the office and on west coast time. and yes i did have reserve coffee at one point but recently used it up and some how thought I had enough here for one more pot. nope.
'tis what it is.
felt tired on the bike this morning. probably because i was tired. the bike path was clear enough to ride all the way in, had to dodge some trees and snake through a machete chopped path through vines and branches but it was a no-dab ride.
good evidence that the water did indeed get high enough (or the waves at least) to wash a bunch of debris onto the path at the big causeway north of Squantum Club, but all passable. not nearly as bad as the last storm that ripped stuff down. But then that's the point, the last storm we had did a fantastic job of locally pruning stuff so our immediate area and the bike path were less effected than they might have been.
I hope the rest of New England is recovering and doing okay.
power was on when we got back, and hadn't been off long enough for anything in the freezer to melt.
making the biggest challenge showing up with no coffee in the office and on west coast time. and yes i did have reserve coffee at one point but recently used it up and some how thought I had enough here for one more pot. nope.
'tis what it is.
felt tired on the bike this morning. probably because i was tired. the bike path was clear enough to ride all the way in, had to dodge some trees and snake through a machete chopped path through vines and branches but it was a no-dab ride.
good evidence that the water did indeed get high enough (or the waves at least) to wash a bunch of debris onto the path at the big causeway north of Squantum Club, but all passable. not nearly as bad as the last storm that ripped stuff down. But then that's the point, the last storm we had did a fantastic job of locally pruning stuff so our immediate area and the bike path were less effected than they might have been.
I hope the rest of New England is recovering and doing okay.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
damn training plans
So sometimes you set up a plan, you get some great advice that meshes with your experience, have something more or less set up for the next 4-5 weeks.
And then suddenly it becomes impossible to follow through with.
So what do you do? Improvise.
My plan was to continue the weekly ~20 min TT effort. Either on the same Tremont course or using the old Prov Velo Club course out by the Wheeler Farm. And that didn't happen. Two weeks. I did manage a good leg ripping off session on Sat AM. And have linked a few skill days together while trying to recover from it.
In lieu of actually getting a 20 min TT effort in I spent a mile or two warming up this morning and slammed it into the 12 and rode as hard as I could on the CX bike for 10 minutes. Gripel face the whole time. Add one more of those for the ride home and that will have to do until I get back from the wedding trip. I doubt there will be time, much less a bike, to spin around on while I'm out there. With the weight down to under 190 right now it will be interesting to see if I can keep it there w/o much of a blip after all the non-stop parties for 3 days straight. This isn't just a wedding. This is going to be an EVENT. Or really event after event after event after event followed by a wedding. Then an airplane ride then a massive mess here.
Mentally I've been on a roller coaster. Bleak and depressed looking at things one way, then finding a life raft of solace here and there. Working on finding the positive has helped. Staying positive seems to be a good thing.
Trying to do that looking ahead at the next handful of days.
It will be fun. It will be a good time. Focus on all the small aspects that are nuggets of gold, ignore the giant elephant sitting on your chest. Yeah.
well.
that's the plan at least.
Might actually try and unload the TT wheels that carried me to the Bikeworks overall victory. esp with the Zipp 303 tubulars now. Heck not a bad idea to slap some road tubbies on there in the spring and race on those. Sure they have 24 spokes front and rear but that's not a bad thing in my mind. And that way it forces me not to run more than a season on a glue job. just thoughts though but if you know anyone looking for a set of Reynolds Strike Carbon Clinchers (66mm rim) with 10 rides on them, no crashes drop me a line.
heddwch
G
And then suddenly it becomes impossible to follow through with.
So what do you do? Improvise.
My plan was to continue the weekly ~20 min TT effort. Either on the same Tremont course or using the old Prov Velo Club course out by the Wheeler Farm. And that didn't happen. Two weeks. I did manage a good leg ripping off session on Sat AM. And have linked a few skill days together while trying to recover from it.
In lieu of actually getting a 20 min TT effort in I spent a mile or two warming up this morning and slammed it into the 12 and rode as hard as I could on the CX bike for 10 minutes. Gripel face the whole time. Add one more of those for the ride home and that will have to do until I get back from the wedding trip. I doubt there will be time, much less a bike, to spin around on while I'm out there. With the weight down to under 190 right now it will be interesting to see if I can keep it there w/o much of a blip after all the non-stop parties for 3 days straight. This isn't just a wedding. This is going to be an EVENT. Or really event after event after event after event followed by a wedding. Then an airplane ride then a massive mess here.
Mentally I've been on a roller coaster. Bleak and depressed looking at things one way, then finding a life raft of solace here and there. Working on finding the positive has helped. Staying positive seems to be a good thing.
Trying to do that looking ahead at the next handful of days.
It will be fun. It will be a good time. Focus on all the small aspects that are nuggets of gold, ignore the giant elephant sitting on your chest. Yeah.
well.
that's the plan at least.
Might actually try and unload the TT wheels that carried me to the Bikeworks overall victory. esp with the Zipp 303 tubulars now. Heck not a bad idea to slap some road tubbies on there in the spring and race on those. Sure they have 24 spokes front and rear but that's not a bad thing in my mind. And that way it forces me not to run more than a season on a glue job. just thoughts though but if you know anyone looking for a set of Reynolds Strike Carbon Clinchers (66mm rim) with 10 rides on them, no crashes drop me a line.
heddwch
G
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Get your cyclocross on (tire pressure)
I dosed out another bit of Cyclocross Magazine last night. So good. Picked the Tire Pressure article. Some good tips from Mayhew and Thorne as well as from Yee. Well written article.
It got me thinking a bit. What pressure should I be running now that I'm 20 pounds lighter than last year.
Yes. twenty. Well that's what the scale said last night. I'm going off the fact that the lightest I was at the start of the season was 207... i think (well that's what I was at the end of the season for certain, maybe early was 209). This morning I was still two pounds under 190.
I feel skinny again. But not just skinny. Sort of like "who's legs are these?"
Tire pressure is going to be interesting. There is a great suggestion, get a digital tire gauge. To measure the pressure INSIDE the tire, not outside the valve in the pump hose.
But, honestly, the hose pressure is probably pretty close to close enough as a pump it up reference. I have tended to run pressure based on feel a bit. The tubular should flatten out and stick like Velcro on that down hill chicane at Gloucester before the right-hander onto the sea wall. but not bottom out on the rocks along the beach on the other side of the fence from the pits (I flatted there last year - the result? lapped. but at least I finished).
These last couple days on the Blue with the tubbies I've been putting in close to 40 (using a silca track pump gauge that goes up to 200 or something insane). I headed out without pumping them, up and well they didn't respond too well to the 90° right turn on the pavement. There was around 20-25psi in them. Too low.
Bottomed out but still had solid traction and good cornering feel with that gauge setting around 40 after topping em back up. The best part about using latex tube tubulars (or even clinchers) is the fact that you do have to top them up every ride. not like a fat butyl tube where you can get away with going a few days or a week w/o checking the pressure.
I've been wrestling with race schedule and planning for the fall. Back and forth so much over the last 24hrs. Solid roller coaster. Stress and anxiety. Stuff that I know I'm not the only one dealing with but wow it sucks, solidly tough. It will pass and things will work out.
trying to stay positive.
Anyone want to buy a used but un-cut EastonReynolds ECX90 fork (off the cracked unwarrantiable giant)
Heddwch
G
It got me thinking a bit. What pressure should I be running now that I'm 20 pounds lighter than last year.
Yes. twenty. Well that's what the scale said last night. I'm going off the fact that the lightest I was at the start of the season was 207... i think (well that's what I was at the end of the season for certain, maybe early was 209). This morning I was still two pounds under 190.
I feel skinny again. But not just skinny. Sort of like "who's legs are these?"
Tire pressure is going to be interesting. There is a great suggestion, get a digital tire gauge. To measure the pressure INSIDE the tire, not outside the valve in the pump hose.
But, honestly, the hose pressure is probably pretty close to close enough as a pump it up reference. I have tended to run pressure based on feel a bit. The tubular should flatten out and stick like Velcro on that down hill chicane at Gloucester before the right-hander onto the sea wall. but not bottom out on the rocks along the beach on the other side of the fence from the pits (I flatted there last year - the result? lapped. but at least I finished).
These last couple days on the Blue with the tubbies I've been putting in close to 40 (using a silca track pump gauge that goes up to 200 or something insane). I headed out without pumping them, up and well they didn't respond too well to the 90° right turn on the pavement. There was around 20-25psi in them. Too low.
Bottomed out but still had solid traction and good cornering feel with that gauge setting around 40 after topping em back up. The best part about using latex tube tubulars (or even clinchers) is the fact that you do have to top them up every ride. not like a fat butyl tube where you can get away with going a few days or a week w/o checking the pressure.
I've been wrestling with race schedule and planning for the fall. Back and forth so much over the last 24hrs. Solid roller coaster. Stress and anxiety. Stuff that I know I'm not the only one dealing with but wow it sucks, solidly tough. It will pass and things will work out.
trying to stay positive.
Anyone want to buy a used but un-cut Easton
Heddwch
G
Monday, August 22, 2011
Reluctantly Crouched part 3?
recycled post... but appropriate
How many countless hundreds of New England Cyclocross racers are poised at the starting line...
Deftly manuevering their credit card,
practicing punching in the digits on the number pad,
dreaming of the holeshot,
planning on a front row starting position,
Hitting refresh at bike reg every couple of seconds not knowing what 12:00 means on their server...
refresh... refresh...
Yeah... how them fingers doing? Ready to go? It is G-ster baby. New Belgium Worlds (quite the list of breweries will be there)!
it is almost time...
poised...
and...
yeah...
it is cross season for real now.
heddwch
G
Reluctantly crouched at the starting line,G-ster Pre-registration race starts in less than 2 minutes...
Engines pumping and thumping in time.
The green light flashes, the flags goes up,
Churning and burning, they yern for the cup.
They deftly manouver and muscle for rank,
Fuel burning fast on an empty tank,
Wreckless and wild they pour thru the turns,
Their prowless is podent and secretly stern.
As they speed thru the finish the flags go down.
The fans get up, and get out of town.
The arena is empty except for one man,
Still driving and striving as fast as he can
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up,
And long ago somebody left with the cup,
But he's driving and striving and hugging the turns,
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns.
He's going the distance.
He's going for speed.
She's all alone, all alone in her time of need.
Because he's racing and pacing and plotting the course,
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse.
He's going the distance.
Yeah!
No trophy, no flowers, no flash bulbs, no wine.
He's haunted by something he cannot define.
Bowel shaking earthquakes of doubt and remorse,
Assail him, impale him with monster truck force.
In his mind he's still driving, still making the grade.
She's hoping time that her memories will fade,
Cause he's racing and pacing and plotting the course,
He's fighting and biting and riding on his horse.
The sun has gone down and the moon has come up,
And long ago somebody left with the cup.
But he's striving and driving and hugging the turns,
And thinking of someone for whom he still burns.
Cause he's going the distance.
He's going for speed.
She's all alone, all alone in her time of need.
Because he's racing and pacing and plotting the course,
He's figting and biting and riding on his horse,
He's racing and pacing and plotting the course,
He's figting and biting and riding on his horse!
He's going the distance.
He's going for speed.
He's going the distance...
How many countless hundreds of New England Cyclocross racers are poised at the starting line...
Deftly manuevering their credit card,
practicing punching in the digits on the number pad,
dreaming of the holeshot,
planning on a front row starting position,
Hitting refresh at bike reg every couple of seconds not knowing what 12:00 means on their server...
refresh... refresh...
Yeah... how them fingers doing? Ready to go? It is G-ster baby. New Belgium Worlds (quite the list of breweries will be there)!
it is almost time...
poised...
and...
yeah...
it is cross season for real now.
heddwch
G
anchored to the desk
Broken scopes, field service engineer is supposed to call back... Gloucester reg opens at noon
I crapped out that b-day whiny post earlier and it got to me a bit. Bugs me that it bugged me. Rationally sure, I wasn't hadn't been part of the family that long. Maybe they didn't know when my birthday was. Maybe no one thought it would matter to me.
HAH.
I tried to think about a good birthday. Couldn't.
I do remember one surprise party. It sucked too. Summer after graduation, before heading to college IIRC (brain not working well lately I suppose, must be getting old). I head over to her house. Then one friend shows up. 15 min later another friend, then people that are her friends but never were really my friends showed up, one at a time. They all kept coming and we just were all hanging out in the living room talking. Then people stopped showing up. Each one said some variation of "we were just in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by."
made sense to me. i was a country boy. no one lived anywhere near me, it seemed completely normal that city/suburban folks acted like that.
Turns out they were all hanging out in a parking lot, watched me drive past, then timed their arrival.
They had to tell me it was a surprise birthday party.
I don't like surprise parties.
I relish the anticipation. You know like Cyclocross season. The anticipation is an important part. Knowing it is coming.
Really hate surprise parties. With a passion.
You'd think I'd be happy with ANY party.
Probably not. Forty years of jaded bitterness (okay maybe i wasn't jaded before I turned 10, call it thirty) about this time of year can't be rationalized away.
I know it is all in my head and I'm the one in control, but wow that doesn't seem to help.
Focusing on CX helps. Helps quite a bit. Mostly because I avoid the negative by sticking with the positive.
alright - man i sound like a whiny jackass. sorry about that.
moving on.
maybe busted scope service guy will call back soon... my luck he'll call in the middle of the race for registration.
I crapped out that b-day whiny post earlier and it got to me a bit. Bugs me that it bugged me. Rationally sure, I wasn't hadn't been part of the family that long. Maybe they didn't know when my birthday was. Maybe no one thought it would matter to me.
HAH.
I tried to think about a good birthday. Couldn't.
I do remember one surprise party. It sucked too. Summer after graduation, before heading to college IIRC (brain not working well lately I suppose, must be getting old). I head over to her house. Then one friend shows up. 15 min later another friend, then people that are her friends but never were really my friends showed up, one at a time. They all kept coming and we just were all hanging out in the living room talking. Then people stopped showing up. Each one said some variation of "we were just in the neighborhood and wanted to stop by."
made sense to me. i was a country boy. no one lived anywhere near me, it seemed completely normal that city/suburban folks acted like that.
Turns out they were all hanging out in a parking lot, watched me drive past, then timed their arrival.
They had to tell me it was a surprise birthday party.
I don't like surprise parties.
I relish the anticipation. You know like Cyclocross season. The anticipation is an important part. Knowing it is coming.
Really hate surprise parties. With a passion.
You'd think I'd be happy with ANY party.
Probably not. Forty years of jaded bitterness (okay maybe i wasn't jaded before I turned 10, call it thirty) about this time of year can't be rationalized away.
I know it is all in my head and I'm the one in control, but wow that doesn't seem to help.
Focusing on CX helps. Helps quite a bit. Mostly because I avoid the negative by sticking with the positive.
alright - man i sound like a whiny jackass. sorry about that.
moving on.
maybe busted scope service guy will call back soon... my luck he'll call in the middle of the race for registration.
one painful memory
That I can never shake.
Family reunion. We're in Boulder CO (IIRC, may have been a different location) for the family reunion. Step father's family. But we'd been a part of it for a while.
A joint birthday party is held. This was early August as I remember it. It covered the late July birthdays and the August birthdays. A handful of them.
All of them except mine.
I don't remember a lot of the specifics but the emotional memory is still painful...
not sure why I thought of it now... as a teenager desperately looking for acceptance and acknowledgement it was really tough to take. Obviously as it still has barbs in my memory.
Family reunion. We're in Boulder CO (IIRC, may have been a different location) for the family reunion. Step father's family. But we'd been a part of it for a while.
A joint birthday party is held. This was early August as I remember it. It covered the late July birthdays and the August birthdays. A handful of them.
All of them except mine.
I don't remember a lot of the specifics but the emotional memory is still painful...
not sure why I thought of it now... as a teenager desperately looking for acceptance and acknowledgement it was really tough to take. Obviously as it still has barbs in my memory.
insanity
bring it on.
really no choice, the whirlwind starts pretty damn soon.
Bike Race prep gets a big fat pause button.
But I am hoping maybe to get out and do 45 min or so of CX skills work. The remount is fluid and good 95% of the time at full speed, and getting power to the pedals right away is at that level too, but clipping in, oddly enough, is at a lower %.
Part of the hang up is I will be getting new shoes. Not much choice. These ones i'm riding (the only shoes i've got really aside from the LG winter boots i bought) have been used for everything for the last couple years. Successfully indeed. But the wear in the sole is hindering the clip-in and in the back of my mind I know that new shoes, even the same model, will have a different feel and all the work going in now will have to be re-done for familiarization. BUT, I recognize that there are some shoe independent benefits for going through these specific things.
Saturday I got out and actually managed to get to the 6:30am Dawn Patrol ride that Fast Freddie runs. My legs were feeling pretty solid but the loop went backwards on routes I know pretty well. I've never ridden it backwards and totally mis-judged the timing of a few efforts and was caught a bit flat by a few hills, but for the most part I was climbing pretty well. Esp considering these guys have been hitting the same loop beating up on each other for the last 6 weeks. They don't all race but they race each other every Saturday morning on this rolling road course. My total climbing for the ride was close to 3k feet. Avg HR for the ride there and then the ride to the shop where I worked all day was 147. Brutal but it felt so awesome. Probably would have felt more awesome if I had managed to get more than 4.5 hours of sleep going into the 3.5 hours pedaling hard.
I did get gapped on one 15% grade that caught me off guard and spent a long time chasing at my limit, but I had to take some small measure of confidence that I was getting schooled by a bunch of small skinny dudes (with a few exceptions).
The Cross bike performed very well, until the rear wheel started making some funky sounds. I re-tensioned it before riding home and it disappeared for a bit but eventually came back before I got home. Dead silent with the old CX wheels on it though. So at least I can identify the noise as wheel related.
When it came time for the sprint at the end of the ride, the tank was empty (and i had no idea where the sprint line was). All in all a solid ride but it hurt waking up at 4:30, knowing the alarm was supposed to go off at 5am and then not really falling back asleep, esp after the girls all got home after midnight.
Yesterday I did manage to get out on the old CX wheels like i said. Got some drills in and the single track and turning and left and right felt good. Blowing some rust off isn't so bad.
The kids schedule looks to be maybe permitting a Tuesday night CX clinic for a while down here. My old short course is totally obliterated. The bowl is full of leaves and the other lines are covered in sticks and ill-used. Nothing a group of people can't fix with a few laps. I practiced a bit and tested some lines and the leaf piles actually are good watt suckers, might have to get creative.
So starting after labor day, if you are in RI and want to come down and work on some CX technical stuff (the stuff that will make you smoother and have more fun, and maybe slightly faster or at least less crash prone) let me know. Thinking maybe wed right now, might change.
Time to have a bit more coffee... then load up the rusty race wagon and terrorize RI from PVD to Warwick.
heddwch
G
really no choice, the whirlwind starts pretty damn soon.
Bike Race prep gets a big fat pause button.
But I am hoping maybe to get out and do 45 min or so of CX skills work. The remount is fluid and good 95% of the time at full speed, and getting power to the pedals right away is at that level too, but clipping in, oddly enough, is at a lower %.
Part of the hang up is I will be getting new shoes. Not much choice. These ones i'm riding (the only shoes i've got really aside from the LG winter boots i bought) have been used for everything for the last couple years. Successfully indeed. But the wear in the sole is hindering the clip-in and in the back of my mind I know that new shoes, even the same model, will have a different feel and all the work going in now will have to be re-done for familiarization. BUT, I recognize that there are some shoe independent benefits for going through these specific things.
Saturday I got out and actually managed to get to the 6:30am Dawn Patrol ride that Fast Freddie runs. My legs were feeling pretty solid but the loop went backwards on routes I know pretty well. I've never ridden it backwards and totally mis-judged the timing of a few efforts and was caught a bit flat by a few hills, but for the most part I was climbing pretty well. Esp considering these guys have been hitting the same loop beating up on each other for the last 6 weeks. They don't all race but they race each other every Saturday morning on this rolling road course. My total climbing for the ride was close to 3k feet. Avg HR for the ride there and then the ride to the shop where I worked all day was 147. Brutal but it felt so awesome. Probably would have felt more awesome if I had managed to get more than 4.5 hours of sleep going into the 3.5 hours pedaling hard.
I did get gapped on one 15% grade that caught me off guard and spent a long time chasing at my limit, but I had to take some small measure of confidence that I was getting schooled by a bunch of small skinny dudes (with a few exceptions).
The Cross bike performed very well, until the rear wheel started making some funky sounds. I re-tensioned it before riding home and it disappeared for a bit but eventually came back before I got home. Dead silent with the old CX wheels on it though. So at least I can identify the noise as wheel related.
When it came time for the sprint at the end of the ride, the tank was empty (and i had no idea where the sprint line was). All in all a solid ride but it hurt waking up at 4:30, knowing the alarm was supposed to go off at 5am and then not really falling back asleep, esp after the girls all got home after midnight.
Yesterday I did manage to get out on the old CX wheels like i said. Got some drills in and the single track and turning and left and right felt good. Blowing some rust off isn't so bad.
The kids schedule looks to be maybe permitting a Tuesday night CX clinic for a while down here. My old short course is totally obliterated. The bowl is full of leaves and the other lines are covered in sticks and ill-used. Nothing a group of people can't fix with a few laps. I practiced a bit and tested some lines and the leaf piles actually are good watt suckers, might have to get creative.
So starting after labor day, if you are in RI and want to come down and work on some CX technical stuff (the stuff that will make you smoother and have more fun, and maybe slightly faster or at least less crash prone) let me know. Thinking maybe wed right now, might change.
Time to have a bit more coffee... then load up the rusty race wagon and terrorize RI from PVD to Warwick.
heddwch
G
Friday, August 19, 2011
Oh yeah!
That felt great. Slapped the race wheels from last year on there and went out and did some single tracky dirt riding. Then played the random turning game through the trees at Haines State Park.
Felt awesome. Dismounts and remounts were solid, one pedal flub after a run up when the crank got turned by a branch. Pulled 6 thorns off of a green briar with my right hand.
Was turning left with confidence and flow. Turning right felt funny but i don't think really was much slower.
Now heading out to Woods Hole to check out a wicked expensive fancy microscope we're looking to try and get.
Only 30 min on the bike but it felt pretty f'n awesome.
heddwch
G
Felt awesome. Dismounts and remounts were solid, one pedal flub after a run up when the crank got turned by a branch. Pulled 6 thorns off of a green briar with my right hand.
Was turning left with confidence and flow. Turning right felt funny but i don't think really was much slower.
Now heading out to Woods Hole to check out a wicked expensive fancy microscope we're looking to try and get.
Only 30 min on the bike but it felt pretty f'n awesome.
heddwch
G
Thursday, August 18, 2011
time off
From work. Saving a few bucks here and there with the girls not in summer camp, using a few built up vacation days. Getting stuff done around the house. Tweaking the car a bit here or there, trying to make it all work.
The only thing that hasn't worked well is getting on the bike much. Tuesday night (or monday - i don't remember) I did manage to get out and pedal lightly for an hour to wake up the legs. Last night I rode home from the shop after putting in a few hours that evening. I keep trying to get the CX bike loaded with knobbies, put the PVC barriers together and getting out on the circuit. But so far that hasn't happened. The planned TT hasn't happened yet either.
Solidly debating riding to the Sat AM dawn patrol around scituate on Saturday morning. It means leaving the house on the bike at 5:30am (reasonably if the dog doesn't sleep in). There is a chance I can get a solid TT effort in tomorrow. Combine those two things and put the CXing off until sunday morning and I can maybe salvage the week. I've done a few dismounts, did a couple on the easy ride early this week, and they felt good. Nice and smooth still. Funny that. But then I have confidence in my transitions. Esp the starts and the barriers, the dismount and remount usually come pretty easily. It is all the stuff in the middle I need work on. And well that's where the hurting comes in. The TT efforts.
I suppose I could have not gone back to bed this morning at 5:30 and gotten in 90 min on the bike before my wife left for work but I was tired and gave in to sleep. Sleep and rest are just as important as pushing hard.
Time to go load up the Rusty Race Wagon with some BioDiesel. Original plan was to drive down to Newport and get it from the source, but I've got a few things to pick up in the city (dog food for one) and while TH Malloy is almost exactly the same mileage away from here as Newport, it takes longer to get to Newport (slow roads) and all the other stuff that needs to happen is up along the way back from Cumberland. Now here's to hoping i have enough fuel left in the tank to get there. (I'm making coffee while writing, going with the french press right now).
I did break down and put an order in for shoes, lets see if they get here in time for the first CX race.
Time to get back to busy...
heddwch
G
The only thing that hasn't worked well is getting on the bike much. Tuesday night (or monday - i don't remember) I did manage to get out and pedal lightly for an hour to wake up the legs. Last night I rode home from the shop after putting in a few hours that evening. I keep trying to get the CX bike loaded with knobbies, put the PVC barriers together and getting out on the circuit. But so far that hasn't happened. The planned TT hasn't happened yet either.
Solidly debating riding to the Sat AM dawn patrol around scituate on Saturday morning. It means leaving the house on the bike at 5:30am (reasonably if the dog doesn't sleep in). There is a chance I can get a solid TT effort in tomorrow. Combine those two things and put the CXing off until sunday morning and I can maybe salvage the week. I've done a few dismounts, did a couple on the easy ride early this week, and they felt good. Nice and smooth still. Funny that. But then I have confidence in my transitions. Esp the starts and the barriers, the dismount and remount usually come pretty easily. It is all the stuff in the middle I need work on. And well that's where the hurting comes in. The TT efforts.
I suppose I could have not gone back to bed this morning at 5:30 and gotten in 90 min on the bike before my wife left for work but I was tired and gave in to sleep. Sleep and rest are just as important as pushing hard.
Time to go load up the Rusty Race Wagon with some BioDiesel. Original plan was to drive down to Newport and get it from the source, but I've got a few things to pick up in the city (dog food for one) and while TH Malloy is almost exactly the same mileage away from here as Newport, it takes longer to get to Newport (slow roads) and all the other stuff that needs to happen is up along the way back from Cumberland. Now here's to hoping i have enough fuel left in the tank to get there. (I'm making coffee while writing, going with the french press right now).
I did break down and put an order in for shoes, lets see if they get here in time for the first CX race.
Time to get back to busy...
heddwch
G
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
now sure this ain't that Scottish dude... but just as impressive
i'd write more but it is vacation week and i gots stuff to do.
might even put the knobbies on the Blue and get a diverse intensity in (not sure i can work in a TT this week and the CX circuit might have to suffice as intensity). We'll see.
Tuesday, August 16, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
More winning
The wheels I rode to the TT series victory were won in a fundraising raffle to support Sue Butler's world's trip. A kick ass set of Reynolds Strike full carbon clinchers. I raced them in a crit or two on the Klein and then put them on the Paramount and attacked the Bikeworks TT with them. Not quite disc wheel aero in the rear but pretty close.
I probably should give them some credit for the win, but that would be silly. Winning a bike race doesn't come from buying shit. Esp against cagey veterans and wicked smart bike racers like Solobreak. Winning the race comes from pedaling wicked hard.
That said you have to buy a raffle ticket to win. Sort of like the lottery but with better odds. You can't win the Lottery if you don't buy a ticket, but then the odds are the same if you don't buy one, money maybe not well spent unless you really get a huge amount of pleasure thinking about how to squander the pile of money gathered from people who are really bad at math.
Chabot will never let you forget that I also won another set of wheels. That was pretty fucking amazing. First RTK kicks me out of the rollercam chat room (so TJ can get his mug on camera to do the drawing) but I got back in... Then Mike Golay went and won the beer (I had just stopped drinking so that was nice to see it go to a good guy and a friend - no jealousy on my part). Then he did some other stuff and the raffle for the wheels started.
And he pulled my name out. WOAH. It was crazy. I won. I won the Kickstarter Wheels! (jerry's guts are writhing right now and not from the two heads of cabbage he ate in the last 24 hrs). A set of Zipp 101s. Their new wheels. Pretty sweet wheels I will say. I did have a chance to ride them. They were on the CX bike for a while. Totally rocked them at the Rhonde Rosey, solid solid wheels. And fast. But clinchers.
So winning these wheels put a big spotlight on me and my bike from last year. Someone pointed out what I was racing on. The Tubulars I was riding. Hell the front wheel is almost eligible to race as a Master. Definitely too old to race Juniors. And the rear wheel? Still holding up but it certainly isn't light, or esp new anymore.
Pretty soon I was asked if I would mind sending the 101s back, in trade for a pair of Tubular CX race wheels.
Out of the blue I was just completely dumbstruck. seriously? Would I mind? I couldn't box em up fast enough. Although I will say it was sad to send em back. Those 101s were wicked nice. Very fast wheels.
When I got home last night there were two boxes from ZippUSA.
Time to glue up the Racing Ralphs onto a pair of 303s.
Time to get a hold of a couple tubes of Mastik1 and get to sniffing some glue! We've got RACE WHEELS BABY!
So
So
SO excited... Today is absolutely the antithesis of FPF!
THANKS ZIPP!
anyone have a raffle for some Di2 stuff? (just kidding - sort of)
heddwch
G
Winning doesn't suck.
So last night I managed to do something I rarely do. Win.
Yup. I won a bike race. Well technically I won the series (although in doing so I did actually come in first one night). Sure it is a $6 a night weekly training time trial series, but hey. It is a win right?
Fortunately the guys who ARE faster than me didn't show up enough to qualify for the series win. And this year they didn't break it down into categories. It was just simply overall.
I won. For winning I got a helmet exactly like Solobreak's new one. And upon my collecting the prize for winning he took his old meteor 2 back. Hell I couldn't easily take two aero helmets back in my backpack.
So yeah, Jonny Bold showed up last night in his captain america skinsuit. He talked the super strong Bill Shattuck into coming down too. Dave Potter showed up even. There there was the rest of the regulars. Jack Tickle, Gary Stafford, Dave Foley, Kyle Morrell and Kirk Samuelson. Scott Glowa showed up to give his legs a test rounding out the light attendance for the night.
Average speeds for the night on the course ranged from 29.3 down to 19.5.
Bold obviously set the fastest time of the night, followed by Bill at 27.5 and potter at 26.8. Times worked out to be 16:35, 17:42 and then 18:09 for those three.
The next finisher was me. 19:00. So wanted to be under 19 but i just about puked on reynolds and lost focus and speed just before the turn onto peck, and I hadn't ridden hard all week. Barely at all even (lots of driving into the city this week). I did give it everything though. Prep was sub par but still good enough to beat the rest of the mortals. Solobreak set a time only 3 seconds slower than the one i laid down. That was the closest he got to me all summer on that course. And yes, he is way old and stuff, but he's not slow.
Jack Tickle crossed in 19:11 followed closely by Stafford at 19:13 and then Burke at 19:20. Chris Burke pulled all the stops out for last night. Pulled his Pinnarello bike with the TT bars, aero front wheel, disc rear wheel and Campy Delta brakes out of the rafters and slapped on an aero lid to boot. I didn't lose to him this summer either.
Glowa came in just under 20 at 19:55 and Samuelson just over 20 at 20:03. Kyle lead off the night and posted a solid PR of 24:58.
If anyone wants to see the full results and avg speed and what not let me know (email or comment below).
The series standings was compiled based on those who attended 5 events and then sorted by their average times (it appears that Dave V complied the final avg based on the 5 fastest nights - which is nice because that first one was a significant deviation in avg speed). And checking total avg and five fastest the results seem to be the same.
And now that I have a USCF/UCI legal aero helmet I can head down to the old Bob Beal road course and give it a go at the 2011 New England Regional Time Trial Championship. The course isn't flat but not terribly hilly. Just enough elevation change to mess with you.
Anyway. The series was great. Huge thanks to Dave Varney for coming out and timing us and getting results emailed out. Thanks to Bob at Bikeworks for the prizes. Word has it that Dave is retiring from timing and scoring. Hopefully the Bikeworks club can pull together some folks to make it happen next summer.
We did the whole bike thing this morning. Camp drop off with the little on on the trail-a-bike and the tandem. And then traded trail-a-bike for the trailer and booked it as fast as I could move that giant road train into the city (which wasn't very fast but hey my legs are still dead from yesterday).
Oh and now it looks like a few CX Pros are going to hit Nor'easter, Midnight ride cx, and Gloucester, toss in Night Weasels and PVD and what you have here in New England is what you have in Belgium after Christmas. Okay not quite but find that caliber of races in that time span somewhere outside of Beligum that time of the year.
Okay... i have coffee to drink and microscopes to check over. They are going to have to survive most of next week without me. Staycation week. Maybe get some canoeing in, hopefully I'll manage to make it out to the Fall TT series (different course than BW but near there, i'll bring the stopwatch if others want to come out.
heddwch
G aka Big Orange
Yup. I won a bike race. Well technically I won the series (although in doing so I did actually come in first one night). Sure it is a $6 a night weekly training time trial series, but hey. It is a win right?
Fortunately the guys who ARE faster than me didn't show up enough to qualify for the series win. And this year they didn't break it down into categories. It was just simply overall.
I won. For winning I got a helmet exactly like Solobreak's new one. And upon my collecting the prize for winning he took his old meteor 2 back. Hell I couldn't easily take two aero helmets back in my backpack.
So yeah, Jonny Bold showed up last night in his captain america skinsuit. He talked the super strong Bill Shattuck into coming down too. Dave Potter showed up even. There there was the rest of the regulars. Jack Tickle, Gary Stafford, Dave Foley, Kyle Morrell and Kirk Samuelson. Scott Glowa showed up to give his legs a test rounding out the light attendance for the night.
Average speeds for the night on the course ranged from 29.3 down to 19.5.
Bold obviously set the fastest time of the night, followed by Bill at 27.5 and potter at 26.8. Times worked out to be 16:35, 17:42 and then 18:09 for those three.
The next finisher was me. 19:00. So wanted to be under 19 but i just about puked on reynolds and lost focus and speed just before the turn onto peck, and I hadn't ridden hard all week. Barely at all even (lots of driving into the city this week). I did give it everything though. Prep was sub par but still good enough to beat the rest of the mortals. Solobreak set a time only 3 seconds slower than the one i laid down. That was the closest he got to me all summer on that course. And yes, he is way old and stuff, but he's not slow.
Jack Tickle crossed in 19:11 followed closely by Stafford at 19:13 and then Burke at 19:20. Chris Burke pulled all the stops out for last night. Pulled his Pinnarello bike with the TT bars, aero front wheel, disc rear wheel and Campy Delta brakes out of the rafters and slapped on an aero lid to boot. I didn't lose to him this summer either.
Glowa came in just under 20 at 19:55 and Samuelson just over 20 at 20:03. Kyle lead off the night and posted a solid PR of 24:58.
If anyone wants to see the full results and avg speed and what not let me know (email or comment below).
The series standings was compiled based on those who attended 5 events and then sorted by their average times (it appears that Dave V complied the final avg based on the 5 fastest nights - which is nice because that first one was a significant deviation in avg speed). And checking total avg and five fastest the results seem to be the same.
And now that I have a USCF/UCI legal aero helmet I can head down to the old Bob Beal road course and give it a go at the 2011 New England Regional Time Trial Championship. The course isn't flat but not terribly hilly. Just enough elevation change to mess with you.
Anyway. The series was great. Huge thanks to Dave Varney for coming out and timing us and getting results emailed out. Thanks to Bob at Bikeworks for the prizes. Word has it that Dave is retiring from timing and scoring. Hopefully the Bikeworks club can pull together some folks to make it happen next summer.
We did the whole bike thing this morning. Camp drop off with the little on on the trail-a-bike and the tandem. And then traded trail-a-bike for the trailer and booked it as fast as I could move that giant road train into the city (which wasn't very fast but hey my legs are still dead from yesterday).
Oh and now it looks like a few CX Pros are going to hit Nor'easter, Midnight ride cx, and Gloucester, toss in Night Weasels and PVD and what you have here in New England is what you have in Belgium after Christmas. Okay not quite but find that caliber of races in that time span somewhere outside of Beligum that time of the year.
Okay... i have coffee to drink and microscopes to check over. They are going to have to survive most of next week without me. Staycation week. Maybe get some canoeing in, hopefully I'll manage to make it out to the Fall TT series (different course than BW but near there, i'll bring the stopwatch if others want to come out.
heddwch
G aka Big Orange
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Map of all (or most) of the NECX races
http://partyattheback.blogspot.com/2011/08/2011-necx-calendar-map.html
The little Master-baiting kid put that sweet ass map together.
Where, and when the races are. Well done SHopengarten... well done man!
The little Master-baiting kid put that sweet ass map together.
Where, and when the races are. Well done SHopengarten... well done man!
Troubled
I went from listening to Ray LaMontagne's "You Are The Best Thing" on my Otis Redding Pandora station
So I head over to Spotify to hit a few other versions potentially of that song, and Trouble is sitting there at the top:
Now, sure, it is over played and commercialized lately but it is still a solid song.
For some reason listening I checked into FB for a second, hadn't checked into the AntiCancer-book page and did.
And read
The extra 19 or so years he got, that's certainly remarkable. The difference he has made is undeniably significant. There is no question the book isn't a cure for cancer, doesn't cure cancer or prevent it completely.
What it does is lay out a solid framework for the foods that you can eat that WILL not only improve your life but help potentially stave off extrinsic cancer sources until you die of something else (old age maybe).
Kind of sad to lose such a loud and passionate voice in the force that ultimately was looking to change how we eat for the better.
I see things differently than some. I see Pollan and Servan-Schreiber as not dissimilar. Save the planet, save yourself...
His book is good. Some of the science is not as strongly supported as it could be, studies of the kind that would be needed are hard to fund because flat out there isn't money in finding a cure that entails eating food. Money is in drugs. Or gene therapy, or gold nano-particles.
Imagine the difference that Mark Nicholson could have made on this planet if he had managed to stick around another 14 years beyond his 5 that he shared with us after his diagnosis.
I'm supposed to be fired up. time to blast the course and try and unleash a monster time on the final running of the TT.
Damn you Otis Redding.
Damn you cancer.
But this, if nothing else, is a healthy perspective:
Not sure about how reassuring it is really... acceptable? Yes. Certainly part of Life, no question. But reassuring... Life is a struggle.
a couple more links:
http://www.facebook.com/Anticancer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Servan-Schreiber
--okay-- going to listen to You are the best thing once more and move on from there to focusing on pedaling fast.
So I head over to Spotify to hit a few other versions potentially of that song, and Trouble is sitting there at the top:
Now, sure, it is over played and commercialized lately but it is still a solid song.
For some reason listening I checked into FB for a second, hadn't checked into the AntiCancer-book page and did.
And read
Dr. Servan-Schreiber - a courageous & intelligent human being - was an inspiration to millions around the globe. RIP to one of the greatest people of our time. Please help keep his vision & spirit alive by spreading his messages & research. We will continue to embrace his recommendations & wholehearted dedication to improving the lives of everyone....including you & I. His Anticancer vision will ALWAYS live on....That sucks. His book, the research he has compiled and the simple rules are fantastic.
The extra 19 or so years he got, that's certainly remarkable. The difference he has made is undeniably significant. There is no question the book isn't a cure for cancer, doesn't cure cancer or prevent it completely.
What it does is lay out a solid framework for the foods that you can eat that WILL not only improve your life but help potentially stave off extrinsic cancer sources until you die of something else (old age maybe).
Kind of sad to lose such a loud and passionate voice in the force that ultimately was looking to change how we eat for the better.
I see things differently than some. I see Pollan and Servan-Schreiber as not dissimilar. Save the planet, save yourself...
His book is good. Some of the science is not as strongly supported as it could be, studies of the kind that would be needed are hard to fund because flat out there isn't money in finding a cure that entails eating food. Money is in drugs. Or gene therapy, or gold nano-particles.
Imagine the difference that Mark Nicholson could have made on this planet if he had managed to stick around another 14 years beyond his 5 that he shared with us after his diagnosis.
I'm supposed to be fired up. time to blast the course and try and unleash a monster time on the final running of the TT.
Damn you Otis Redding.
Damn you cancer.
But this, if nothing else, is a healthy perspective:
“Death is part of the life process; everyone goes through it,” he said in one of his last interviews. “It is very reassuring in itself.”
Not sure about how reassuring it is really... acceptable? Yes. Certainly part of Life, no question. But reassuring... Life is a struggle.
a couple more links:
http://www.facebook.com/Anticancer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Servan-Schreiber
--okay-- going to listen to You are the best thing once more and move on from there to focusing on pedaling fast.
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