Watch this whole thing.

Absolute hilarity at 8:50.

Put This On, Episode 2: Shoes from Put This On on Vimeo.

I smell cheap foamy bar tape.

That's what I kept telling Mr. Miles on our 65 miler on Saturday. He couldn't smell it at all. Hm?

We started at his place, SW Omaha, and headed out toward Linoma and Ashland. We dipped South to cross the interstate, then headed into the head wind on Church road and had a ton o fun on some minimum maintenance roads that weren't quite dry. After lots of mud scraping (I rolled 28c tires on my roadie and Miles had his full squish mtb) we got going again and meandered home. The ride had been about 60-ish% gravel, so it was a bunch of fun. The gravel was large and chunky in places, but we both fared well, with no biffs aside from the MMR mud bog that caught Miles off-guard.

Miles mentioned that he thought I was riding strong. Well, here's a couple counter arguments - 1. I was riding an 18 lb roadie compared to his lower 20s full squish bike, so I was way more efficient on hills and such, and 2. I used the power of the pre-cold to get me going.

I now have some sort of cold or allergies going on. My throat is scratchy (like it used to feel when I would get Strep throat every year) and my nose is running. I'm generally achy all over, but there's a chance the ride could have caused that. So cold or allergies - take your pick, I got one of them. I've never really had allergies before, but maybe my smelling some weird scent in the air most of the ride was some sort of pollen that my body didn't like. Who knows?

Sunday was spent mostly on the couch since I felt like crap. I'm only slightly better now at work, so I may head home early and just sleep more to hopefully knock out whatever this is ASAP.

Shabbos +1

Looking like a 10 a.m. or so start time. Starting out west, probably heading south.

Jeremy and I are in so far. We've made basically no plans other than this. Chime in.

Or don't. Either way.

UPDATE: 11 a.m. at Bike Masters. 3 hours. Parts west and south will be charted.

Not much to report

Haven't been riding much - just between jobs and that's about it.

This weekend, on Saturday to be precise, Mr. Miles(end of the post) is hosting a ride from his house. Gravel, 10am start from 180th & Q, 4 hours.

No plans for Sunday yet. Post em if ya got em!

Unforeseen Circumstances

Guys, I'm out for the weekend. Munson I'm sorry. I'll be back in town next week.

Mike Miles.

Weekend 4/10-4/11

So it is Monday. 5 days removed from the weekend mentioned above. But here's the plan.

Saturday: 5 hours of Gravel from my house (180th and Q) post up if you need directions. 10 AM start. The pace will be reasonable, we won't be pinning it. If drilling it is your goal for Saturday go elsewhere, I'm serious. I don't want a 5 hour hammerfest that detroys everybody but one or two of us. Nobody will get dropped for long, if it breaks apart we'll regroup and continue. I need a good solid day but its not a day for slaying my riding companions... at least not with intensity.

Bring some cash, we're going to find some food along the route, because I like to eat lunch.

Sunday: 3 hours @ Platte River State Park @ 9 AM. Why? Because I need 3 hours of solid mountain bike skills practice. Once again, nothing crazy but we can let it hang out if we get towards hour 2 and have something left in the tank. Besides its a loop, we can't 'lose' each other under such a scenario.

I think that's it. All of y'all going to Twin Bing... enjoy it but its not in the cards for me this week. I'll be out @ Tour de Husker next week.

That is all. Except for a shameless plug for my blog... check out mikemilesii.blogspot.com for some entertainment daily.

Mmmm Tasty dirt.

Well, dirt's only tasty when you ride on it well. And I was riding well till I ate it. Not that hard, but I still ate it.

Here's a recipe for a fantastic Monday: do a ton of physical work (sawing, hammering, hoisting things, and moving heavy stuff) on Friday and Saturday to complete your garage bike workshop. Then on Sunday, get up, go ride your mtb bike and crash hard. I tweaked my left calf muscle trying to unclip, my left hip is pretty bruised up, my left elbow has some skin missing, and my entire left shoulder area hurts. Guess you figured out that I landed on my left side. Had I been able to unclip, I might have did a little tuck and roll maneuver, but alas, I just let my left side take the brunt of it.

It's weird, cause pretty much all the crashing I've done on the bike have been left hand turns. I've had this same kinda crash twice on my mtb - I think I don't lean enough and just turn the handlebar, causing the front wheel to slide out. Then on the road, the crash in Fayetteville, AR that knocked me out for a while was on a left hand turn; a crash at a Norfolk crit was a left hander(though not my fault, I couldn't avoid the tumbling bikes/bodies in front of me); and a LONG time ago, I crashed on my left side and seriously hurt my wrist. That last one happened near the end of a season with only the Omaha Corporate Cycling Challenge ride left in the season. So I showed up to the start anyway with a brace around my wrist and of course Shim had to make a guess as to how I injured my wrist. His suggestion had nothing to do with biking. I'll let you fill in the blank...

So I don't know what's up with me and left hand turns. I better not get into NASCAR or anything.

This month I'm back to working early days - 6am to 3pm. So once I heal up from this weekend's adventures, I'll probably join some of the group rides.

I rode my bike this morning before work.

Just to ride. No destination. No point a to point b. No group plans were involved either.

I just put on my cycling clothes and hit the Keystone for an hour. I did some sprints. It felt awesome. Well the first few did. The last few, not so much. I haven't really done a solo ride for quite some time. It was very refreshing.

I'm also going to try something different, or rather, retry something old. I've been using Shimano touring shoes for about a year or so now and I love that you can walk around semi-normally and not sound like a lady in high heels. They are not the stiffest shoes and I got them a size too big so I could wear them in the winter with a few wool socks for warmth.

I went old school this morning. I dug out my old 2002(3?) Sidi Genius shoes. These things fit like a glove and are stiff enough for racing. They are kinda snug on my feet since I bought them before I knew what I was doing in cycling, but snug is not such a bad thing when you're sprinting. The other noticeable difference between these and my Shimanos is the cleat is a bit more forward, even though it's as far back as it can go on the shoe. On my Shimano's I have the cleat pretty far back - like almost a centimeter behind my forefoot. I did this as a result of reading various places that doing so might alleviate toe numbness. I've always had toe numbness problems, so I gave it a try. It felt like a completely different, more powerful pedaling position, so I stuck with it.

Well, after this morning's jaunt with cleats more forward, I'm switching back to that position. I don't know if I was using very different muscles because of the change, but I felt snappier with my pedaling. It's hard to explain, but I'll give this a try for a while and if it doesn't work out, I'll switch shoes again.

So what the heck am I even blabbering about? Uh, I don't know. I guess sometimes you gotta go backwards to go forwards.

Edit: After watching the rides of these guys, I have new motivation to get out there. Watch all the short videos along the right hand side to get some amazing views of our country. And you may recognize from this vid a couple guys who ride/blog locally.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

I kept repeating that phrase in my head as I watched all but 1 other guy from our Sunday ride pedal away from me. Multiple times.

I was never really that mighty, but in my hay day, I was usually top 10 at the races in our state. Sunday, I was utterly done after just an hour and a half. Problem was, we still had 3 hours to go. My legs had no more "go" halfway through the ride.

I know it's a lack of consistent riding and the extra 15-20 lbs I'm carrying around. It still doesn't sit well with me. Speaking of weight, you ever notice that you don't really acknowledge the pounds you need to lose until you see a picture of yourself wearing not very flattering clothing? This picture taken by Mod made my mind blurt out - "Damn, I got a fat ass!!"(I'm in the middle wearing a white/orange jersey) So, I need to work on that. I mean, 15-20 lbs is basically a 2nd bike. So I'm riding while carrying a 2nd bike on my back. Not very helpful when trying to go fast.

I guess I shouldn't be sipping on this soda then.... DOH!!

Yay commuter intervals

I'd never experienced the "bike ninja" scare before this morning. As I was groggily riding in the dark near the old Chili Greens golf course (simmer down, Fred), I could barely focus on what my light was illuminating 10 feet in front of me.

I looked to my left at the first signs of the sun undarkening the horizon and WHOOSH, some person on a bike with no lights flies right by me in the opposite direction. That woke me up better than most cups of coffee.

After I shook off the fear that the bike ninja was coming around for another buzz, I decided to put in some effort - ie do what they call an "interval." I picked up the pace till I was breathing faster than normal and held that effort till I hit an area that had many stops/starts. I pedaled lightly for a while, then on the next notable climb, I raised my effort again and continued after the climb for a while.

After the easy spin into the part time job and the subsequent bike builds, I had a formidable headwind to deal with on my way toward my full time job. The wind had a pretty chilly bite to it, so I used the direct headwind sections as recovery and went fast on the crosswind lengths. Nothing feels worse than going all out at 15mph into a headwind. It seriously messes with your mind.

I am happy to report after the longer ride this weekend and the harder efforts in commuting I've lost 5 lbs in a mere week. I imagine some of that is probably water weight, but at least I know now that if I put in the work, I can turn things around.

This weekend is looking iffy-ish. At least Saturday is not ride-worthy, in my opinion. Sunday will be cool with a Northish wind, so back up to Blair/Arlington/Canada we go. Of course I'll always agree to starting out at Wohlners at 10am, but if we want to meet somewhere else, I'm cool with that too.

Do the Cranky Leg...

So apparently there's a newish dance craze called the Stanky Legg(watch at own risk of bad music).

After today's 65 miler I have my own dance - the Cranky Leg. Basically, you hobble around since your leg muscles are twitching and continuously threatening to cramp up.

Met Mr. Miles, Jeremy, Mod, and Rafal at Wohlners to start the day. Rode North on the trail to meet up with Bryan. We took the hilliest route available to the NorthWest. Thanks Bryan.

Mod and Bryan were pushing the pace and feeling good while Miles and Jeremy had previous day's workouts hindering their freshness. Rafal kept up great when he wanted to. You can never tell when he's feeling bad since it has to get epically serious before he looses his cheerfulness. Always a great riding comrade. I have no excuse. I haven't been riding and that's my own fault. But my one goal for the year is in August so I have plenty of time to work up to it. And I've already gone almost have that distance and I didn't die, surprisingly. And knowing is half the battle - G I Joe!!!

So I plan to become a more frequent attendee on the weekend rides. That and the mad 30 minute dashes between my 2 jobs should get me in decent enough shape.

With this forecast...

...I'm glad I'm a little fat right now.

I think I'll need the insulation come the weekend. Snow/Rain on Saturday and pretty dismal temps forecast for Sunday.

Who's racing Saturday (if its raining, not me) and who wants to put in a nice ride Sunday. Don't think I am wanting to do another 100 with Mod, but I'd probably be game for 3-4 hours. Maybe we can plan it so there's a coffee stop in the middle. We'll likely need it. I don't necessarily mean its gotta be a chill, recovery ride type of thing, just something in the middle that has decent coffee and maybe a pastry.

Post up any thoughts. I'll do some figuring and try to come up with some kind of route myself. Maybe something different... I'd like to say we can go to Iowa for the hills but I'm not sure we can fill the coffee requirement in that scenario.

Mod had talked about starting a firm ride start time/loc on Sat or Sat and Sun so maybe he can chime in here.

Alas, I won't be yelling at any of you this season.

With working full time at UNMC and doing part time at the bike shop building bikes, I need some me time. So this year, I won't be at the races officiating. No more yelling at riders to respect the yellow line, and no more frantic race results postings.

I'd recommend giving officiating a try, but expect to have an experience like this one:



It happens, trust me.

Instead, this year I hope to actually ride some weekends and maybe participate (unofficially) in the GLGA. But I have plenty of building up to do just so I can finish the event. Should be fun though.

Missing the PCL today

But I've got my own plan for Sunday.

The Route:
http://www.mapmyride.com/ride/united-states/ne/omaha/172126822930294091

100 miles with one opt out in Missouri Valley if your legs are cranky. Be prepared for a 100 yards of gravel into Ft. Calhoun, 23c's will be fine.

The Start:
Wohlners, Aksarben Village, 10am

The Conditions:
As of 7:30am Saturday...Areas of drizzle before noon. Areas of fog before noon. Otherwise, cloudy, with a high near 45. North northwest wind between 10 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph.

Weekend 3/13-3/14

Ride plans?

Discuss.

All this talk of Embrocation

Pardaig says it all here

I rode with people instead of cars

This weekend was my first group ride since the beginning of January. I think that was my last really long day in the saddle too. The result - a nice saddle sore for my efforts.

On Saturday I met up with a few folks at Bike Masters to test my legs. And tested they were. I kept up ok at the beginning, but by the end I was keeping a slow tempo in hopes to save myself the the next days ride and to ride with another fellow struggler. We were off the back of Puma, Ryan F, and Mr. Miles (who has a new blog - YAY!!). We chatted and just limped home, but that was fine.

I was planning on doing a Sunday ride, but the aforementioned saddle sore and other house work kept me away.

It's in the Fricken Forties this week Mr. Bigglesworth!! After so much time spent in the 20s, the warm weather just feels weird. I have to figure out how to dress while riding all over again. Mod had some interesting perspective on embrocation. I think it sounds like a great idea, but I believe that stuff is purdy expensive. So if I can find some cheap stuff, I might have to give that a try. On the hands and feet sounds most interesting. Just need to remember to apply chamois cream before embrocation, unless I want to ride really fast.

Weekend

So someday, maybe I'll sign up for a Twitter account but really I don't want to...

Anyhow for now I'll stick to IM's, emails, and blog posts.

Plans for the weekend? Post up lets get something going. Its going to feel like Florida this weekend.

Winter says, "With my last breath..."

"I stab at thee."

And then I yell, "Cry "Havoc", and let slip the dogs of war!!!"

Anyone else in a Star Trek mood? I don't think I've ever been in a Shakespeare mood, but I guess that could count as well.

I swear it was colder this morning than yesterday. My face and legs were so much more frosted than yesterday's record breaking low. How does that happen?

On a related note, I'm not riding my winterized beater anymore. I'm riding my Lemond race bike and IT IS AWESOME!!!! Man how I missed the light stiff ride of my 28C tired, aluminum frame, 5 year old bike. I have no reason at all to get a newer bike. Want would be a reason, but then I'd risk not feeling right on a new bike. My Lemond is the only bike I've felt "just right" on. Ok, enough of me gushing over my old bike. Brady's got his Old Yeller and I have my Old Blue. You're my boy, Blue!!!

Man, I'm just full of movie quotes today.

Low 30s for the highs this weekend. But with low wind and the weather we've been having, it'll feel really good. Any ride plans? At that temp point, my guess is gravel is going to be way too sloppy, so mellow road rides would be nice. If anyone knows of a route that's safe to ride in relation to snow/snow melt/salt/sand and traffic, I'd like to hear it.

"KAAAAAAAAHHHHHHNNNNNN!!!!!"

Mike Miles's Crazy 2010 Nebraska Time Trial Challenge

So, I was looking @ pictures from the Tour of Oman and I really dug the fact that everybody was TT'ing on regular road bikes without crazy aero equipment. Personally, I think such a move should be made in local/regional time trials for everyone outside of the P,1,2 (and maybe 3) ranks. It levels the playing field a lot. I don't think you could advocate folks going back to 32 hole box section rims, but no aerobars, disc wheels, etc could go a long way towards ensuring those in the lower categories have a level playing field without the need for a TT bike and several thousand dollars in wheels, accessories. The article I've linked below kind of quantifies what I'm talking about. 300W for same speed as 230W on a full out TT bike. That's not what I'd call inconsequential.

Article

I'm going to up the ante and say that I'll show up on a regular road bike, with regular wheels and a regular helmet to every Nebraska Time Trial in 2010. Right now the calendar shows 3 of them... I'll also contribute $100.00 to a pot that will given to the top 3 of the best 3 time trials completed in such a fashion. Winner will be chosen based on combined time of the 3 time trials. To be part of the pool you too must throw in $100, though if you think you are a real bad ass you aren't throwing in $100, you are only stealing my (and hopefully others) money. I look @ it like this, if I put this challenge out there it costs me exactly $100, if I do not it costs me 4-6k. Seems like a fairly easy trade even for me. I do love bikes, but I love bikes that have more than limited practical function.

Why do this? Because its awesome, and a lot more fun than going down to the bike store and ordering up $5,000 of speed.

Why $100? Well $100 is enough that it makes this attractive to enter yet at the same time isn't going to make you choose between entering or eating dinner this month. It's also enough that you will break your back (no pun at you Mr. Redemske) to put in good times at the 3 TT's to win it.

Who is this open to? Well I guess anybody that will compete in TT's in Nebraska in 2010... If you are PRO, sure come steal our money if you want, but I'd reckon that most PRO's that will be in Nebraska for 3 TT's will just go for the regular TT category wins and not some wild category that Mike Miles has constructed. If we get more than 10 entrants I'll reconfigure the payouts to go a bit deeper than 3. (Think 30% of the field will get payback).

Rules:
#1)Regular road bike with drop bars
#2) No wheels deeper than 30mm
#3)No Skinsuits
#4) Regular road bike helmets
#5)Entry to the pool requires $100, that will be split among the top 3 (50% to 1st place, 30% to 2nd place, 20% to 3rd place) if there are less than 10 entrants, if more than 10 enter I'll reconfigure the breakout.
#6) Reply to this blog post, email me, or tell me prior to the first time trial of your intention.
#7) There's a bit of gentlemanly honor in this, I'm not going to measure your wheel depth or anything stupid but you'll know if you try to circumvent the rules and when time comes for me to hand out money are you really going to take $ from your friends in a dishonest fashion? If you're that hard up for a little cash, lets talk outside of the challenge.

That's it.