My B.O. is like the Borg

I sweat a lot. I wear some sort of bandana thing under my helmet. Otherwise I'd be crying on every ride above 70 degrees from sweat drenching my eyes.
Now where my sweatiness really becomes a problem, is under my armpits. As some of you may know, but don't readily admit in front of me, I get funky. Not the good kind of James Brown funky(RIP), but the bad kind of "I need to back away from this person" kind. Only a few of my really good friends have felt comfortable enough to tell me, "Jeez Mike, you stink." This usually happened during really long drives in a car where there was no escape.

I think I was the first kid in grade school to develop "body odors." I distinctly (HA!) remember a time in 5th grade where the teacher talked solemnly to us about growing up and how we "change." Little had I known, but I guess some of my fellow classmates told our teacher that I was stinky. So she very fairly told all of us that we need to talk to our parents about body odor. So that was the beginning for me.

I started off by using the strongest stuff available since I eventually figured out that not many others smelled as bad as me. On to the Extra strength antiperspirant deodorant. This stuff instantly made me smell like, well, whatever fragrance was labeled. Shower Mist, Cool Rain, Morning Dewdrops, etc were some of my choices of masking agent. At first, everything was fine. Eventually though, the bacteria under my pits "assimilated" the product I was using and within an hour of application, I was funky again. So I switched to the ever growing brands available. I had good luck with Old Spice for a while. Month or 2 later, YOU HAVE BEEN ASSIMILATED. Then I figured out that the too strong antiperspirant was possibly making my Borglike funk bacteria into superspores. They could handle anything I threw at them since they had beaten down the best.

This led me to switch to non-antiperspirant deodorant. At first it was difficult. I had to go into hiding and/or not exert myself at all. The hot and humid summers here in Nebraska were always a death sentence for me. But then the super mega B.O. lost a worthy adversary, so it got weaker. I also switched to the wonderful smelling - hippie made Tom's Natural of Maine Woodspice deodorant. I loved the non-fake smell of Woodspice since it made me smell like trees instead of Jr. High.

Alas, my armpit bacteria assimilated the hippie goodness of this new product also. So, I thought about going a completely different route. I used Gold Bond's Extra strength Triple Action Medicated powder. Whew! This stuff did the trick. I put it on before my commute into work, and even though it was a balmy 70 degrees with high humidity, my armpits remained under Gold Bonds control. I HAD DEFEATED THE B.O.rg!!

That is until recently. Now, like before, I apply the good smelly stuff, and within an hour or 2, I'm back to bad smelly again. I may try to switch to non-extra strength to see if I can weaken the B.O.rg's stranglehold on my "pit's of despair," but I'm not holding my breath. Others will just have to hold their nose.


Shabbos ride anyone?

Ah, Shabbos +1 goodness.

Rolled out with Bryan and Bob this morning at 6:30am. Bob decided to run the single speed with a 52x20, so I joined his fun by keeping it in my 53x19 most of the ride. It's interesting how I felt fresh aerobically the whole ride by overgearing it. The only time I was breathing hard was on the climbs, but that happens anytime you stand to grind up a hill. I almost want a single speed again, however, I don't need anymore bikes and doing it on the cheap will result in a heavy bike that I don't want to ride. I've learned from my Bianchi commuter experience and will never travel down that road again. By the way, anyone want to purchase a couple year old, nicely maintained Bianchi Castro Valley, size 58? It's an awesome commuter, but not built for speed and nimbleness. It's made to handle all types of weather to get to work, which is exactly how I've been using it. I've made some mods, of course. It's got a shorter stem since the bike's biggish for me; which is the main reason I'm selling it. Okay, okay, okay, enough of my spamming.

I went for a run Friday afternoon and I'm comfortable with being prepared for the Raven's Nest 5K race next weekend. I'm not expecting big things, but I'm not going to keel over and die either, so that's a plus. This week of training was drastically different from last week. But I am now recovered and ready to steadily increase the time on the bike instead of going full bore. 10 hours is much more realistic than 15 at this point of my fitness.

One funny thing about riding more recently is that I've seen Spence a couple times on the trail. After our easy (but just enough of a workout) ride this morning, I saw the Spence pain train heading out on the trail as I was going home. Spence of course motioned to me that I should turn around and join them. I apologized and said I was just finishing up. Don't know how much they could have understood, being we were traveling in opposite directions rather quickly. So now I know that he hits the trail somewhere between 9am and 10am on the weekends. With the temp already upper 80's at 9am, I was glad to be done with the ride, and I pittied them for just heading out. Especially with how hard they were about to go. But eventually, I will be joining the pain train so I too can put the hurt on others. So look out! (In 6 months, that is...)

Great idea? Bad idea.

Ever since my first week back on the training bus (which included a 90 mile ride, 2 fast paced, long group rides, and a couple "recovery" rides), I think my body went into full recovery mode this week. I remember reading a couple places (ok, basically every training book out there) that you're only supposed to increase your training volume by 10%-15%. Well let's run the numbers. An average week for me, pre-training: Commute every day, 6 miles, 30 minutes tops; A couple group rides, 40-ish miles, 2-3 hours. So I was averaging at most 100 miles a week with a time of 8 hours. If I was lucky. So then I decide, "Hey, how about a week of 260 miles and 15 hours.!" Now, I'm no mathemetician (apparently not an english major either), but that training week had to be at least a little more than a 10%-15% increase.

I always wondered what would happen if you jumped leaps and bounds in the volume of your training. I had always been careful when I first got into racing, but still wondered. Well now I know. Every day this week around 3pm I would get crazy sleepy. Like no motivation to do anything. The nights I went straight home, that was it. I lounged on the couch all evening. I guess that's why it's damaging to your training if you increase volume by a bunch. Your body can't take it, so it takes it out of you.

New plan: after I recover this week, I'm going to ease back into it. Unfortunately, that probably means no competitive group rides for me. My body just can't take the intensity yet. I need to treat my training as if I've just come off the October recovery period after the racing season. So that means steady paced rides, low intensity, and GRADUAL increases in volume. I'll be up for some Shabbos (+1) rides, but only if they're fun/easy group rides.

Speaking of which. Shabbos ride anyone? 6:30am at Crane? 2, maybe 3 hours of easy riding? Anyone? Anyone?

Still sleepy, feeling better.

I realized yesterday, when the radar looked like some evil storms were heading our way from Blair, that I should do a quick run instead of a ride where I could be stranded way out there. Also, I'm doing the Raven's Nest 5k on August 10th, so I should probably be in some sort of running shape by then. I rode home from work, changed into the running gear, then headed out. Of course the evil looking clouds that had been on the radar turned out to be nothing, but I needed the run anyway.

I ran a couple times 2 weeks ago and only once last week so I didn't know how I was going to feel. Those runs were no so great. I have been putting in time on the bike so I should be more aerobically fit. Which is exactly what happened. I could just run without struggling. It was great that I didn't have to suck wind just to make a mile. I think I'm getting my lungs back from cycling. That was the only reason I got 15th overall at Raven's nest last year. I had been training on the bike most of the season. This year, not so much. But now I have a plan, and am sorta sticking to it. I will be more fit. Oh yes, I will.

O' Brother where Art Thou?

Two funny things in one article!!
from : The World Herald
It's an article about an attorney in Nebraska suing to block a casino in Iowa:

"... Bruning on Friday defended his lawsuit. He said the geographical oddity of Carter Lake - sandwiched between downtown Omaha and Omaha's Eppley Airfield - makes his case more complicated than simple state boundaries."

Not that that's too funny other than the phrase "geographical oddity" being lifted from 'O Brother where art thou'.

The real funny part was this line about the actions of the Ponca Tribe to get some tribal land approved for development:

"Bruning and Miller contend that the tribe deceived the government to get the land placed into trust."

Those Indians! Always tricking the government!

Anyway - what's that got to do with anything? Nothing. Other than the Coen's made the Big Lebowski and tomorrow is shabbos +1. Let me know if anyone is up for anything. I know it's late notice, but I'll check later and see. Ok. Thanks. Buy.

I have been in the pain cave...

And I hope to muster up a flashlight.

I rode to the Bike Masters Wed night Group ride and felt pretty good. I recovered well from the 90 mile ride on Sunday. Funny thing, my legs never felt sore after that ride. The only thing was the back of my neck. It's still hurting right now. I guess I built up some good neck muscles when I was putting in many hours a week on the bike. And since, for the past year, I've basically only been commuting the whopping 6 mile round trip most days and occasionally getting a 3-ish hour ride in, those various long distance muscles have faded. Guess I gotta build them back up.

So the ride: The group looked to be pretty solid, but the legendary fasties weren't there. No Spence, Brackenbury, Ellis, or various others. So I had some high hopes for myself. At first Bryan and I pushed the pace a bit up some climbs. That felt good. Then we kept the pace high for a majority of the ride out. I started to fall off after a failed sprint with no goal. Bryan took that one even though we didn't know where we were sprinting to. I just gave up after a few seconds while he kept going = he won. After that, about 45 minutes into the group ride, I was pretty toasted. There weren't any bad hills after that, but we still had to turn around and ride into the 15-20mph headwind. All the way back. Then I had to ride home into that same headwind. Ugh.

After we turned around the group was together. For about a mile. Then Bryan picks up the pace and was pretty much just gone. The rest of us crawled home in various groups trying to rotate and work together to share some of the wind burden. Eventually, when we hit some good climbs, I was off on my own. I just couldn't stay with anyone anymore. So I putzed back to the shop and eventually JP caught up with me. He's got some wicked clunky sound going on with his bike so we checked it over at the shop. My bike is noisy too, but I just haven't really cleaned or relubed any part of it for most of the year. Oops.

After I refilled the bottles it was time for the slog home into the headwind. I had motivation along Fort St with traffic, but as soon as I hit the trail, I could barely maintain 13mph, even when I was shielded from the wind. I stopped by Chipotle for some awesome recovery food and called it a night. Again, I'm not sore today, other than the neck muscles. So that's a good sign. I just need to train those otherwise unused muscles to take multiple riding days again. Then I have to work on my upper end aerobic engine by doing group rides and steady climb intervals. Then, over the winter, I will hit the gym, do some gravel road rides, and rebuild my strength again. So I have about 6 months to muster up a flashlight for this pain cave. Better get musterin'.

An Epicly Epic ride.

Well it was epic for my current fitness level. I guess I shouldn't even say that. My body just isn't used to the miles. My aerobic system was ok, my muscles made it till about the last 10 miles or so. But today if feels like someone took away my neck muscles. I can barely hold up my head. See I've been riding my Bianchi just for commuting for a couple months now. It has way more of an upright position than my lightweight racey Lemond. But I needed all the help I could get to last the 90 hilly miles on tap. So by then end of the ride, after my neck muscles got more of a workout than they ever had, I was more than a little sore. Harlan, the finish town, had a nice massage tent setup. So I got a good working over for 15 minutes with a focus on my neck. So that was nice. But today, I'm still feeling it. Time for some vitamin I - as in Ibuprofin.

So the ride itself was quite fun. Bryan rode 10 miles from his place to get to mine, then we headed downtown after dropping off a couple bags of change-of-clothes at my parents place. We ventured over the 480 bridge pretty uneventfully. The shoulder was just one bike width, so we single filed it, but there was barely any traffic at 6:30am on Sunday. The shoulder was also very rocky/glassy. But we made it across without incident. After moseying through downtown Council Bluffs, we headed North on the very fun Old Lincoln Highway towards Missouri Valley to join the first day of RAGBRAI. This road is not as hilly as I remember. We were taking it rather easy so maybe that was the reason. There were plenty of hills, though, once we got onto the RAGBRAI course. We met up with Matt Pavlovich with a great group of friends that had their own little motif going. It was the running of the bulls deal where one bigger guy was painted red and had these huge bull horns attached to his helmet. The rest of the people in the group wore white garments and had red saches on. They were basically imitating this. Quite hilarious. Also along the ride were many different bike-boom-boxes. Some were little seatpacks, others were full-on trailers, but everyone got to listen to music ranging from C & C Music Factory to Johnny Cash. Again, good times. The many different costumes and bikes kept the otherwise boring Iowa backdrop interesting. There were many a cornfield we passed while riding up and down hills. There was only a couple flat sections. It was funny because as soon as there was about a mile or so of flatness, pace lines would pick up and motor through. But these broke down with any hills since congestion of slower riders made it dangerous.

It was quite an experience, but I'm not sure I'd want to do the whole week of RAGBRAI. I'd have to be trained for it, that's for sure, but after about the 4th or 5th day, I think I'd be pretty tired of pork chops and goofy dressed people. Not that those things are bad, but moderation is always good.

So that lovely/painful 90 mile ride started a new training schedule. This next month is just a break in period so I'm only doing 10-14 hour weeks. That's not hard to do when you start a week with a 5 hour ride. Today is an off day, minus the commute, then Tuesday and Thursday I'll do an hour easy each, Wedsnesday will be a couple hours on the Wed night group ride, Friday will be another off day, then Saturday will be 2-3 hours of whatever. I'm not really assigning intensity yet. I'll go hard when I feel like it, but mainly I just need to build up my aerobic base and get my body used to riding lots again. Also, riding more will hopefully get me back down into the 150s lb range. I'm publishing my training log here. I'll update it hopefully after most rides. This published log will keep me motivated and accountable to all who read it. So if you check on it and there's a few days missing, remind me to either keep training, or to update my rides.

Sunday is the beginning of the end.

I'm tired of wasting away. My quads and calves are thinning down and my waistline is growing. I'm kinda scared about the 80-90 mile ride this Sunday because I haven't ridden that long for at least 6 months. The longest ride in recent memory was riding over to Lake Manawa, doing TT intervals a couple times, then riding home. The total riding time was about 3.5 hours and I was a big wet spaghetti noodle the rest of the day. So this Sunday will be interesting. I hope Bryan will be patient as I can some drifting off the back on a few hills in my future.

But that will be it. That ride will mark the start to a new life for me. Michelle is driving now so I have no commitments after work. I can put in some good training after work to eventually get back to my former...um...form. I am mapping out a training regiment that will involve upping my aerobic rides for the last part of the summer so I can handle 90 mile rides easy. Then, over the winter, I will work on strength and dropping weight. I'm not sure if I can be in tip top shape by the beginning of next race season, but I think I'll be close fairly competitive form.

I thought about the money situation and realized it's possible to make money while racing. You just have to plan better to save money on traveling, eating, etc. and/or finish in the top 5. If I get back to my former strength (or maybe even stronger) I know I can be up there. I've learned from Bryan that you don't have to spend money on the latest and greatest stuff to get strong. It's the training that matters, not the equipment. Granted, when it comes to TT's, aero stuff always helps, but I can hopefully borrow equipment to shave away seconds. I just have to train so my motor isn't holding me back.

So this is it. I am making a declaration that next summer will be my return to racing. I really miss it. I miss the feeling of putting others in the hurt lockers when on an attack. I miss the weekends spent putting in 4-6 hour rides so the intense long races don't hurt that much. I really miss riding my bike.

If anyone wants to go on easy or hard training rides, let me know. There'll only be a couple times a year where I'll have to work late for a month, but other than that, I should be on the road most days by 5pm. It will be fun.

My ears are on fire.

Or...I have ear cancer. Sunday I worked the wheel pit for my officiating duty at the Babcook memorial crit downtown. I put on sunscreen most places, but forgot my ears, temples, and backs of my arms. So those places got pretty red. "Backs of your arms??" you say? I slathered on the screen on the already kinda burnt tops of my arms (forearms, hands), however, did not think that I would be crossing my arms behind me for a few hours out in the sun. Which is exactly what I did. Therefore, the backs of my arms, which never get any sun exposure, got a little burnt. I wore a hat most of the day so that's why my ears and temples got burnt.

So enough skin cancer talk. The Omaha cycling weekend was fun but labor intensive. This was my first official race being an...um...official. I did a couple practice crits early in the season, but they were not, officially official. On Saturday, I was out at Mt Michael (216th and North of Maple) by 7:45am for the time trial. That race went ok with only a few communication issues. All was said and done by about noon so I had an hour to eat and get down to Papillion for the afternoon crits. I was a tad late, but all was still getting setup when I arrived. The different crits went well, but scoring(keeping track of who's 1st through last in the race) was difficult/stressful. These sets of races were all done by 9pm. So that was a long day.

Then Sunday I got wheelpit duty. I was just fine with that since scoring is not so fun, but it involved me standing in the sun most of the day. Hence the sun burn opener. This race also went most of the day. There by 8am, leaving by 5pm. After this weekend, I have a whole new respect for organizers, officials, and volunteers. They make races happen, otherwise it'd just be a bunch of glorified group rides. If you've never scored a race (or have ever protested a result) I'd suggest trying it once. Cause keeping track of 20-40 people going by 25-50 times at different intervals is no easy task.

As an official, I'm supposed to stay neutral, so I just want to congratulate all of the racers who came out gave it their all and (hopefully) had a good time. I do however want to mention that, on Saturday night, it was fun watching Alex Boyd hold his own against 4 other breakaway companions who were all from the same team. I've been in a similar situation before where it's you alone against 3 or so others conspiring to drop you. In my situation, I got dropped. Alex did not. In fact he won the race. Quite impressive, sir. My hat's off to you. There were many other amazing feats of strength throughout the weekend, so congratulations to all who participated. Thanks for keeping racing in Nebraska alive and well.

Warning: Political Content ahead.

Here's another good reason to vote for Obama in November. Having a presidential candidate who's already talking to the bike industry is a great start. Granted, if (hopefully when) he gets elected, bike lanes won't just pop up over night. But if he can get the wheel rolling, so to speak, then I believe change for the better can happen.

Also, here's a bike that I would love to ride someday, just to see how weird it is. Talk about an ultimate grocery getter.

Rough couple of weeks

So I'm officially back from my 2 week vacation. I was actually back on Thursday afternoon. I was definitely not back in cycling shape though, let alone any other shape. Here's the skinny(or should I say squirty?).

Sunday the 22nd, my dad and I were off to Pennsylvania. First stop, South Bend, Indiana for a stay over at a hotel. We didn't have to be to Pittsburgh till afternoon on Monday, so we got up and took a ride around the Notre Dame Campus. Purdy cool. Many of the really old buildings were under construction as was the football field, so our ride was mainly just a pass through. We pack back up, and head off for P-burgh. Clark, my little bro who lives there and was hosting us, had a ton of old stuff at the parents house that we transported to him. After all that was unloaded, the vehicle had plenty of room for our stuff and bikes. The next day we headed out to Philadelphia to catch the 2nd part of the first day of the Tour of PA. The crit was fast and exciting. I talked with Pool a little and called it a day. The next couple days we stayed with some relatives and followed the race across the state at various points. Basically we would get to a spot (usually a sprint spot or KOM) watch them go by, then take a different route to get to the next spot. This was really difficult because the whole state is a tangled spiderweb of highways and interstates that really doesn't make much sense. Usually when we got to our next spot, they were just coming in. It was really cool to see a rolling enclosure in action. You'd have oncoming traffic that got pulled over by the cops, the race would go by, the caravan would go by, then the long line of vehicles trapped behind the race would creep by slowly. So that was a fun experience. Unfortunately, it was not in the cards for Pool or his team to achieve great glory. They did really well for the first half, but strong teams and a goof with traffic into Pittsburgh robbed them of coming out on top. Pool has a good race report on his website.

So after the race, my dad and I hung out with my little brother again. We went cave dwelling, fancy house touring, and we ate some great food. Well, it all tasted great, but apparently one of the many dishes had it out for me. On Tuesday, the 1st, we started to make our way back West. The plan was to stop along the way at various trails and ride our bikes often. Well my dad did, but I did a lot of reading while in a bathroom. I highly recommend NOT getting food poisoning. Ever. Only being able to eat 2 bites of any dish, then feeling full to point of bursting (almost literally) for most of the day was not a great way to travel across the country. We got back on Thursday and I was still not well after 2 days of heavy bathroom time. Friday, I spent some time at Michelle's mom's place since they always do a great 4th celebration. Again, not much food and that night was particularly unpleasant. So Saturday and Sunday I really did nothing but drink as much fluids as I could stomach and rested hardcore.

Today, Monday, I'm feeling better stomach-wise, but am way behind in strength and condition. The ride into work today was probably my worst ride ever. Worse than the -9 degree weather this winter. Worse than even the easiest rides back when I was training hard 20 hours a week. So, needless to say, it's going to be a while before I'm ready to do some intense training rides with you guys. I'm all for easy recovery rides, if anyone is interested, but that's about it. I'm thinking 2 hours tops for a while.

This weekend is the Omaha Race weekend and I'll be one of the officials, so you guys better be on your best behavior. Then the next weekend is the Cornhusker State Games TT where I will also be officiating. So it may be a month before I'm in for some Shabbos goodness. Sigh....

Easy Sunday. Easy Monday. Easy ...

We'll I've decided to get back in the saddle again. I'm a cowboy - On a steel horse I ride. So tomorrow, I'm going to start earlyish (6:30-7:00) and most likely head south on the trail for a while.

Monday - I'm taking the day off and going to try to meet up with the U.P. lunch ride group (if it does not rain). The U.P. lunch ride is way more than I have the fitness for right now, but I need some humiliation for my fat-ass. It starts typically around 11:45 and goes for about 45 minutes. Meet me at the HQ and I'll ride with you for a few minutes until I mercilessly ride away off the back.

Ride more.

Saturday Bike Masters ride at 8:30 in the a.m. Gonna be probably 50 miles, pretty mellow. Just looking for smooth hours in the saddle. Come one, come all, etc.

Celebrate your independence ... from work

Here's a preliminary plan:

Shabbos -1, 6:30 a.m. from Bike Masters. Gonna be back by 10 or 10:30. Uptempo, but never angry, pace.

As of now, I am in control here

Due to a terrifying line of succession, with Mike out of town I am the boss of you, MITMON readers. I checked with Al Haig and he said I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want. It's an awesome, yet solemn, responsibility.

Here's some info to help ease the transition:
1. I propose a Shabbos (Saturday) ride.
2. The time of the ride shall be 6:15 a.m., at Bike Masters or another suitable spot.
3. The pace of the ride shall be race-pace or faster. Probably faster considering we were doing 14 mph at one point in Norfolk. That was pretty fookin' ridiculous.
4. The route of the ride shall be determined later, and most likely based upon wind.
5. Again, the pace of the ride will be fast. Possibly throw-up fast.
6. The length of the ride shall be 3 hours, no more. JP has to be home by 9:30 because his wife has to work and is therefore leaving the kids with him. I would think that at ages 6 and 4, the kids can be by themselves for a few hours. If Jack can do it, why can't they?
7. Think about joining us if you want to go fast. With a gap in Nebraska racing -- or even Iowa racing -- getting more nasty high-speed work in is a good idea.
8. Leave questions or concerns in the comments.

Some interesting events.

Things are gonna be busy this week in prep for my 2 week vacation to Pennsylvania. I leave this Sunday for the East to watch Aaron Pool race in the Tour of PA, visit some relatives, and bike around with my dad. I will be back on the 5th of July. So I may be ready for a Shabbos +1 on the 6th if I've wound down enough. We'll see. Plans can be put up here and hopefully I'll get a chance to check them while out of town.

Monday was a great/horrible day for the woman. Michelle never had a drivers license. Her parents never got around to teaching her and she got along just fine on the bus and with rides from friends. Well on Monday, after a few months of great lessons from my (now retired) dad, she passed the drivers exam and can drive where ever she wants now. No more waiting on the bus. The bus is a great way to save money instead of having a car, but not really convenient. At one point, she was living in mid-town and working out west. She had to take a bus downtown to catch another bus that would head out west. It was an hour and a half trip each way, everyday. Basically, more time than it takes to drive to Lincoln. EVERY DAY. She went mildly bonkers after a couple years of that. Now she works closer to home, so the bus ride wasn't as bad, but still, the need for her to be able to drive became more evident. And since I'll be gone for 2 weeks, she'll be able to get to the store, go out, and generally have more freedom than she's ever had in the past. Good times ahead for her. The horrible part of that day was that she went into the dentists to get a couple wisdom teeth pulled. Way to have a rollercoaster start to the week.

In friends news, Bryan's search for a new job landed him in the same building. He is now working as a tech-geek writer and WORKING DAYS!! I can't imagine the strain of working the shift he's been on for a while, 4(ish)pm - 1(ish)pm. I gripe and complain about working 11am - 8pm for a month at a time, but that's not cutting into a normal sleep schedule. I'm guessing now that he can get proper recovery, he'll be able to really up the intensity of his training. Plus being able to join the Wed. group rides always boosts performance. Congratulations Bryan. Other friend Brady is unwinding from a tough battle in a half-Iron Man down in Kansas. Brady has proved he is one tough cookie when it comes to being on the rivet. Congrats man, for a job well done. Fred, welcome back to blog world. Hopefully we'll get in more early morning rides on the weekend. But not for a few weeks. Catatarian of the year award goes to Bob for rescuing a little bundle of fur from certain automotive doom. Thank you sir, on behalf of all cat people everywhere.

Am I lazy? Yes I am.

bryan said...

a Shabbos +1 proposal:

Sunday, 6:30 a.m. at Crane. I'm planning on 5ish hours, so we'd be back by 11 or 11:30 at the latest. Mike Munson has to be back by 11:30. My wife would prefer that, too.

Speed: It's tough to hammer for 5 hours. Let's call it spirited, but never fast.

I concur with Bryan.

Speaking of riding for fun...

Shabbos ride anyone? We could resurrect the way early (anti-Peter) ride and get a few hours in before the heat and wind get bad.

Post your ride times/routes/suggestions/ideas/philosophies.

My type of cycling hero.

This guy knows how to ride. For fun and for life. That's the way it should be.

Various stuff.

The weekend came and went and I got in an hour ride with the woman. That's it. Otherwise it was on call duty, clean, work on bikes, projects, and avoid tornadoes.

Brady invited me on an early early ride Saturday morn, but I didn't get the message till late. Plus I would have had to turn back after about 45 minutes to be home so I could sit around for my on-call duty. Sucks. In a few months our on call is going to stretch out to once every 6 weeks instead of once every 4. That'll be nice. However this is going to come with other shift changes that'll see me doing the late shift (11am to 8pm) 4 times a year instead of 3. It's all kinds of weird, but we'll see how it pans out.

Bryan had a great weekend at Norfolk. Way to go, buddy! I sure wish I could have been there to race and watch others race, but seriously, I gotta keep chipping away at my debt load. $4 a gallon gas and lack of training motivation has all but taken me out of racing this year.

Aaron Pool is taking up my slack of team representation by doing really well at a UCI stage race in Spain(?). He had multiple top tens, wore the best young riders jersey for a day and says he felt strong in all aspects of his racing. In just a couple weeks, he and a few teammates are flying this way to do the Tour of Pennsylvania. My dad and I are heading out that way for a nice vacation of following the race, visiting family, and riding some rails-to-trails. Fun times!

I mentioned before that I worked on bikes and started a project. Well here's the details, if anyone wants to know, which I'm sure you do, oh yes you do. Actually, don't feel bad about not reading from here on. Topic is dinking with bikes and working with wood, that's it.

So on the bike front, I've successfully stayed away from doing a big purchase. If I think about it, I've made at least one pretty big purchase if not a couple, every year for the past 4 years. It's either been a whole bike, a wheelset, or a bunch of parts. This year, I've bought a couple small items to keep the bikes going, but that's it. And my debt load reflects this. I'm making huge gains on it, and it feels great. So anyway. What I have done to quell my need to get new stuff is continuously change old stuff. I have a bike that my parents got me in 10th grade, so about 14 years ago. This bike was made right when "hybrids" first came onto the scene. It's more of an off-road hybrid since it has 26" tires. It's definitely not aggressive trail riding worthy. I have recently used random parts to make it into a cruiser/fun ride bike that I use on outings with the woman. It has a nice upright position and a big cushy saddle. Very anti-racer like!

The Bianchi commuter I bought last year has also gotten some changes. The stock wheels it came with are heavy, especially with the front hub being a generator. Since the days are so long, I don't really need a generator light, so I swapped out the wheels for lighter training ones. I have my Ree-Lights on these, just to cover any early day/evening rides. I also changed out the rear derailleur and cogset to a mtb setup. The stock was 12-27 on the rear with a single 42th chainring up front. Since this bike is a beast (28lbs with heavy wheels, 26lbs with light ones), I needed something easier than a 42x27 to get me up the hills. Now I have an 11-34 on the back so I could conceivably climb some mountains. I may need that for my Pennsylvania trip since there are some mountains over there. Another little thing I'm quite proud I figured out was my fender setup. If you have fenders on your bike and you ride in the wet, you know that having the fenders fairly close to the tires really helps ward off tire spray. So on the rear fender, there are 3 mounting points usually: a cross brace right next to the bottom bracket, a cross brace near the brakes, and the 2 metal rod thingies that attach to the rear drop-outs near the rear wheel axle. It's easy to adjust 2 of the 3 mounting points. The bottom bracket brace is not so easy. I've heard of people using spacers and longer bolts to move the front of the rear-tire fender closer so it can protect the chain from getting tire spray. When I was going through my parts for a long bolt, I found one of those inner-tube valve stem nuts and got a great idea. I took an old innertube, cut out the valve stem and got a couple more of those valve nuts. I secured the valve stem to the fender, added another stem nut, ran it through the frame's cross brace, then added a final valve stem nut. So now, I can loosen a couple of those nuts (by hand, which is nice since it's a very tight space in there) and adjust the fender for when I might use larger tires. At this point if you still have any idea what I'm talking about, congratulations, you are as big of a bike-wrench-nerd as I am. If not, I might post pics later to show what the heck even I'm talking about.

Edit: here's the pics of said fender greatness:

You can see how it's a valve stem.

Here you can almost see the part that used to be part of the tube.

And here you can see the ginormous pie-plate like rear cogset. Also note how close the fender is to the tire. No spray on my chain now!


On the wood work side, our place has a great/horrible skylight right above our bed. It's great for lighting, but horrible when it rains. The thing acts like a drum for every rain drop and we sleep right under it. It's no fun being woken up by a snare solo at 3am. So my parents were kind enough to give me some spare pieces of wood to create a sort of sound deadening baffle. I started work on that yesterday and will hopefully finish it soon since the rest of the week looks like lots of random storms are coming.

So that's what's going on in my neighborhood. What's happening in your neck of the woods?

And talk about the weather.

Something happens and I'm head over heals,
I never find out, till I'm head over heals.

If you know the song, you're singing it in your head right now. Tears for Fears. The Big Chair. One of my all time favoritist albums.

So anyway, talk about the weather. It's been just crazy. Storms every evening. Rain. Overflowing rivers. The mtb crowd is suffering withdrawal since there hasn't been a dry trail around for a couple weeks. Remember the big weather news like 3 years ago was DROUGHT!!! The Drought of the Century, blah, blah, blah... Not much of that going on now. Good ol' global warming is kicking in so polar ice caps can melt to provide the world with water to fix the droughts. That's my theory. Even though I only know 1 semesters worth of Earth science, I'm sticking to my ideas.

Good luck to those peeps heading up to NorfoLLk. I'm outo shape and broke so I canno make the trip. That road race is really tough and the crit is super fun. Hopefully the weather will kinda cooperate for you guys up there. Most of the really bad stuff has been lingering around Omaha and to the South, so Norfollk should be good.

I'm on call again on Saturday morning and will probably do a bike ride with the woman in the afternoon if the wind/rain/tornadic activity does not blow up. I will, however, be up for a ride either Sunday Morning or afternoon if those staying in the big O want to join in. Leave a message at the beep, or rather comment.

Ouchie

So I joined Brady and his Triathlete friends for some LT intervals. They met early and had a freezing cold swim while I just rode to Lake Manawa from home. We all got a nice warmup in.

The plan was to do a lap of the course as a group, send one person off at a time the next lap for TT efforts, do another group easy lap, then do a pursuit dealie where the slowest person from the first effort gets sent off first while the fastest guy goes last.

I had forgotten the plan was to do this 2nd TT effort and probably went way too hard on the first one. I did the 6.62 mile lap in 15'20" so at an average of about 25.6mph. I was extatic with this time since I really haven't been training seriously this year. Never mind that I had on a skin suit, lycra booties, shaved arms/legs, and aero bars. I needed all the help I could get. Now Lucas; the guy that I chased on the first lap, had no aero bars, skin suit, or lycra booties. His first time was only 20 seconds slower than mine. Sheesh, that's one strong mofo. On the 2nd effort, I again chased him, but I never came close to seeing him. His 2nd time was 15'26" whereas mine dragged out to a 15'36".

So that was a great way to spend a Saturday morning. I hurt alot now, but it was fun and I need this type of motivation. Now I think it's time for a nap.

Nice mellow weekend.

The woman and I had a nice 3 days together. Since she's been working at Goodwill, her days off are usually Wednesday and Saturday. So when she saw that she had the entire 3 days off, she was just a little giddy about it.

Saturday was Michelle's little sisters' graduation. So we attended the ceremony then headed over to her mom's place for the celebration. Much food, fun, and badminton were had by all. Then, she got her graduation present: a Nintendo Wii. The new video game systems are crazy. They connect wirelessly to your network with ease, the graphics are amazing, and they come with too many buttons. Anyway, we played lots of Super Mario Smash Brothers, which was a lot of confusing fun.

Sunday we got Michelle a bike. I had taken her into the bike shop just a couple times before and nothing really interested her. But after the days got warmer and she test-rode this bike she said, "If I get this bike, I will ride it." So Sunday, we got it and we rode. Now, this is the first bike ride she's done in a few years, so making it from our place to the Keystone and up to Dodge was a pretty big accomplishment. We'll probably start out with a ride during the week and 1 or 2 rides on the weekend. She wants to get into shape and the bike will be better for her since she stands all day at work.

Monday was spring cleaning time. We cranked up the stereo, opened up all the windows and went to town on the place. We've lived in this place for about 8 months now and still had some unfinished organizing to do. That, and laundry. And dusting. And sweeping. It's amazing with hardwood floors, you can sweep every three days and still feel grit when walking around barefoot. Makes you realize how much crud must get ingrained into carpet. The cats are also starting to shed, so vacuuming our stairs and upper floor has become pretty common.

In all the cleaning commotion, I spaced out Chris's graduation party. So sorry to Chris and Bryan! I missed out on some good times with great friends. Congratulations Chris.

Other than that, not much has been going on. My hammies are super tight from either the cleaning or the badminton. Not sure which or why. I guess everytime the birdie fell, I had to pick it up. And I spent alot of time hunched over with dusting and such. Guess I need to do some stretches at the desk.

Hope everyone else's long weekend was well used.

I wouldn't call this eye candy...

but, I plan on buying some of this when it comes out.

Dave is truly a funny guy and if he doesn't charge Assos prices for his butt butter, I'll put it into regular use.

Eye Candy

No words are needed!

Huffy toss?

I'm doing a half marathon this weekend....

...on my bike. This event is happening Sunday morning and I'm volunteering to help ride along for assistance. I've actually never been to a marathon(or half) so this will let me see if I ever really want to think about trying it some day. If anyone wants to join me for a long sloooow day in the saddle, I'll be leaving my place around 6-ish am to be out at 108th and hwy 370 by 7am.


On a side note, my latter June/early July trip with my dad out to Pennsylvania just got more exciting. Poolboy and his team of miscreants are shipping back overseas to partake in the Tour of PA. So we'll have plenty to do in the 2 weeks I'm taking vacation.

On a side-side note, the 2nd unannounced part of my great discoveries post was that I thought about getting a "do-all" bike frame and build it up with spare parts I have. I know, however, I'd end up buying extra stuff too. So I have since decided to "do-all" with stuff that I already have. My Fisher Ferrous is one sweet ride and the frame I was thinking about is in the same ballpark as the Ferrous. So with some tweaking, I think I can make it my year round commuter/gravel road rider/mtb bike. The only other biking to cover, fast road rides, will be taken care of by my current road machine, the ever trustworthy aluminum Lemond bike. So I can sell my Bianchi (which is a great bike, just too big, too heavy, and not off-roadable) and make do with what I currently have. I'm starting to make some headway on my huge debt load so that feels really good(if you want want to experience what a financial punch to the gut is like, ask me how much debt I have sometime). Any new bike purchase/racing plans would put a halt to that progress, so I must maintain course and live as simply as possible.

Good luck to all of you doing the TT this weekend. I'll be doing some overtime hours at work that morning wishing I could be meditating about bunnies and lollipops to quell the searing pain of my legs/lungs.

Shabbos: A plan

Since Mike posted a two-part revelation that only included one part, we've all been left panting for the conclusion. Let's all gather and pant together.

That sounds dirty.

Anyway, tomorrow is Shabbos, the day of riding. And since nobody's racing, how about meeting at Bike Masters for the 9 a.m. group ride? If you want to get punchy at the front, we can do that. If you don't ... well, you can ride with the guy who shows up on his hybrid. Kidding, kidding. It'll be a good chance to get some quick work in.

Now, what about rain? Well, if it's raining at 9, I'm going back to bed. I'll just ride later. And no, I'm not riding the trainer or rollers. It's outside or nothing. A day off probably wouldn't hurt, anyway.

So that's the plan. See you there.

What will I think of next??

Sometimes I don't feel like a complete tool. Sometimes I figure things out that really makes me feel smrt.

Ride into work this morning: 43 degrees. Not bad, but needed a long sleeve something, light gloves, a cycling cap under the helmet, and knickers to keep the knees functioning. Since I was in commute mode(strictly riding to and from work), I didn't need any fancy cycling clothes, just comfy looking street wear. I just wore my Shimano sandals with wool socks, cycling shorts under my knickers, a Nike longsleeve running shirt (Bryan, I think I have the one that you've raved about and yes, it's purdy dern good), Nike short sleeve running shirt over LS shirt, my favorite Defeet mid-weight gloves, and cycling cap. I was just right for the 20 minute jaunt in mid fourties weather.
Ride home from work: 80 degrees. All the aforementioned items besides sandals, shorts, and short sleeve shirt were too much for the ride home. At first I tried stuffing my socks, gloves, and cap into my knickers pockets, but it was very uncomfortable. Then I looked at the long sleeve shirt I wasn't going to wear and thought, "That would make a pretty nice fanny pack." So I laid the shirt out, placed the cap, socks, and gloves in the middle, folded up the body part, then used the sleeves to wrap around my waist under my shirt. It worked perfectly. I again, had just the right level of clothing for 80 degrees and was happy as a camper riding home.

So that was my first bright idea of the day. My 2nd one is a much more involved revelation (HA!) that will take another posting tomorrow when I'm not so tired. I'm back to the 6:30am - 3:30pm shift and 10pm is officially calling-it-quits time. Stay tuned for my 2nd amazing discovery that just might involve the conjuring of a new bike.

Hey, do you feel like throwing up?

Come to Hummel Park around 9 on Saturday morning. I'm doing hill repeats. It's gonna be awesome.

Or not. But I'll still be there.

Another big mileage weekend, sortof.

Jonny and I did the Great Plains Bicycle Club Spring Fling Metric Century on Saturday. First we asserted our authority for the first 15 miles and just rode off the front from Louisville to get to the first Sag station in Plattesmouth. After that we had a few headwind sections, so we got together with some strong guys and just rotated at a nice easy pace. The pace was a little too much for a couple of the guys so by the end of the bad headwind sections, at about mile 55, it was down to Jonny, me, and one other guy. At that point, the metric Century route headed back to Louisville. The 24 mile route took this same road, but then went West. (Hard to explain) Anyway, we added most of the 24 mile route and tacked on an extra 13 miles or so to our metric century by heading out to good ol' Murdock, up around South Bend, across the river onto hwy 31, then back to Louisville. They had hotdogs n Brats waiting at the end that were quite scrumptious. So that was 4 hours to do 73-ish miles. Good times.

Then Sunday, it was reality check time. I got a text from Ryan F saying that he, Roxy, Kev, and Shim were going out on a 3-4 hour ride. Now I knew they would go hard since Kevin is as strong as an ox and his long ride days are a little too quickish (by about 5 mph) for my current fitness level. Well little did I know that the fury was about to be brought. On the ride were: Ryan and Roxy, Jeff Bergan(sp?), Kevin, Shim, Jay Chesterman (of Iowa mtb fame), Jim (last name escapes me), Kent, Stephen Jarrett, and me. If you know those names, you know that they are all pretty much MTB specialists. Well apparently, all of them had some steam to blow off since the race down in Kansas got post-poned on them at the last minute. I told myself I was only going to ride with them for a little while since I was super sore after my 4 hr ride the previous day. We took the usual Wed night Trek store ride route which entails going North on the trail, bipping over to Irvington road, out to hwy 36, over to 72nd and the Omaha Trace, Ft. Calhoun, Boyers Chute, then South home some way. The "go fast" parts are always Irvington road up a long grinder hill, Omaha Trace, and the route between Ft. Calhoun and Hummel Park. I was at the front for the Irvington road hill, but then away they went, and I was off the back. We all regrouped to start the next fast section, Omaha Trace. Well we were on it for quite a while and the speed was mellow. I thought this was great and decided I could actually eat some food to keep the fire going. Well mid-bar, with a mouth full of food, the hammer dropped. And off the back I was again. This time I all but sat up and almost turned around. But I figured I was only a few miles from Ft. Calhoun and it would be easier with the group riding a tailwind. This assumption was wrong. After the Ft. Calhoun regrouping, the pace picked up on the flat roads by Boyers Chute. Now what was frustrating about this, and I don't mean to knock all the mtbers I was with, the group did not work well together at all. And I don't want to name names (Shim) but drafting confidently was hard since there were some squirrels among us. Anyway, once the big hills hit, the group split in 2: the guys who were in TT mode to get home on time, and the rest of us who were taking it easy. We rode home at a very mellow pace, but my legs were super hurty. This is the kind of achiness you're supposed to have in the winter when putting in mega mile days for the off-season. But alas, I'm doing my base training in April/May. Hopefully I'll reap the benefits in the late season. I guess we'll see.

Congrats to Bryan for fairing very well at his first out of state cat 4 race - the Iowa City race weekend. He is picking things up and getting stronger with every race, so that's good. Teammate Ryan Legg also did that race and got a 10th place money spot in the RR which is amazing considering the distance, competition, and weather conditions. He had a pack finish for the crit, but has grown a fire in his belly for racing since he knows now he is fit enough to be with the strongest guys. Ryan, you are one fast mofo, give em hell. Kevin, Noah (Kevin's son), and Troy were down in Kansas doing the Velotek Grand Prix. Kevin did very well getting on the podium with Brian Jensen. *(little disclaimer that there was a field of 5 cat 1/2s). This race has been, for the last few years at least, been run without a cat 1/2 field, strictly cat 3/4/5s, Masters, womens, and juniors. I believe it was run this way so cat 3s and Masters could actually get large payouts. This is kind of a good idea since those fields bring in the most people, but I'm sure it alienated a lot of cat 1/2s. So that plus the cost of traveling is my guess as to why the field was so small. Congrats guys, on having a fun successful weekend.

So that was just a brief summary of my weekend, how was yours?

The Cold has now subsided.

Well now that it's not dipping down to the 20s for overnight lows and I'm working the late shift, I've been actually riding a bunch. I've ridden 4 of the last 5 days. Saturday was a 3.5 hour jaunt with some teammates. Needless to say, it got kinda quick in places. That was mid-day so when 7am ride time on Sunday showed up, I was not at all recovered. I hurt from the very first pedal stroke and was happy with just doing 3.5 hours. The compatriots on this newly revived Shabbos + 1 ride were: Bryan, Brady, and Joe S. Everyone was a little tired, except for Brady. He's posted some news on his blog regarding his repositioning and knee issues. I dunno. I think he must have installed a bionic knee, and maybe a side order of whale lungs, because he put the hurt on all of us during some climbs. So that was a great hard weekend.

I took Monday easy with just the commute to/from work. Then Tuesday and today I hit the trails at Swanson for some single speed leg blasting workouts. I got in 3 laps in before work Tuesday, one with Mod. He was taking it easy on his full squish 29er Fisher with gears. Just like always, any technical section we hit and BAM, he's gone. I just can't rip the corners or ride as smooth as the true mountain bike brethren. Maybe someday I'll get it. Today, I slept in and was only able to get 2 laps in. I was just fine with that as I'm going to need a couple days recovery after all these miles on road and bumps off road.

It has been perfect weather recently. Riding to/from work, I've just been wearing everyday shorts and a t-shirt. I just pedal easily and I don't sweat. I'd love to look like an average joe who decided $3.50 a gallon is not worth it and is quietly protesting the use of cars with every ride. In plain clothes, I don't seem to get yelled at by many disgruntled drivers compared to when I'm riding in tight cycling clothing. Kinda weird. I'd love to find a t-shirt that had a pic of a gas pump with a red circle/cross through it to wear while I'm riding. If I could get just one person to try bike commuting, I'd be thrilled.


Oh yeah! This weekends plans. There's a Great Plains Spring Fling metric Century (near bottom of page) that leaves Louisville at 9am on Saturday. I'm planning on it, and I know Jonny Randell's in too. Brady mentioned he might crash the party also. I know the Iowa City races are the destination for most of the racing peeps out there. I do love those races, but man, I'm out of shape and broke. Maybe next year. So that also means Sunday is up in the air. We'll see what happens.

Hope everyone's enjoying the weather!

What's that you say?

Shabbos +1 is back??? From it's original starting location?

That's right my cycling brethren. The coffee shop formally known as Caribou has a new name. I don't know what that name is, even though I've been by it a dozen times or so. But this Sunday, at 7am, the brainchild of one Peter B (only in attendance once and now in California) and Mr. Mitmoned himself (as once seen in cycling sandals and rumored to do so again) will sure as Sheldon, roll on Shabbos.....+1.

Wouldn't it be great if Fred showed up in his wool jersey, ready to sweat out some last apprehensions before his final finals? And wouldn't it be great if Brady showed up with flags hanging off the back of Old Yeller so they can slow down his blazing fast speed since fixing his knee issues?(congratulations on that again, by the way)

Come one, come all to the event of a lifetime(or rather since it got really, really cold).

Meeting time: 7am
Meeting Place: The coffee shop formally known as Caribou (72nd-ish and Pacific)
Ride type: Friendly social ride with speeds averaging in the upper teens.
Distance/time: we'll figure it out based on who shows up and time constraints.

There'll be fun, laughs, and hopefully more than 2 people!! Hope to see you ALL there!!

Knowing both roles.

I've been the biker and the driver. Both actors portray their roles quite well.

This is just mean!!

Ya I gotta ride em! But I can't afford em!!

Lightweight wheels sweet!

You're Welcom Fred, and updates.

Fred, congratulations on the completion of a significant life milestone. Would you say, the later you get that diploma, the more you appreciate it? If so, you must really love it. Sorry, had to go there.

Well, despite Matt's fighting for my cause, the Lemond Zurich is not going to happen. Thanks again, dude, for trying. I will keep trucking on my Aluminum steed with much happiness. It really is a great bike. The opportunity was just hard to pass up. Some day, I hope to finally see what all the hype is about on a plastic bike. I will probably order that Salsa Casseroll later in the year when my relief check actually comes in (mine's not coming till mid August!!!). Hopefully, I'll find that bike more zippy and fun to ride than the Bianchi. There's something to be said about a stable tank of a bike, but there's much more to be said about a bike frame that doesn't squirm under every pedal stroke.

THIS WEEKEND!!! Saturday: 40s for low, 70s for high; Sunday: 50s for low, 70s for high. I think we might need to go practice bikes for a little while being that there's no races to attend or help with and the weather will be perfect. I have yet to confirm, but I think the old Caribou coffee shop has been replaced with a new one. I just drove by it, the other day and saw a new sign and lights on inside. I don't know if it's officially open yet, but that could be a new/old meeting spot again since it's right off the trail? Please post your open hours and preferences for ride time so we can get out there and put in some miles!

Thanks mike.

I was going to post to fredcube, but I thought that might be silly. I haven't even read any blogs for a few weeks. So what a great surprise to see my name in the title Munson's last post.

Oh by the way, I will graduate from the college on May 9th. Lots of people go to college for 25 years - yeah their called professors. Drop by the house in the afternoon/evening, if you'd like. I'm having a big huge party. I will start posting on fredcube about golf stuff real soon.

And Mike - I still have my Zurich if you could use a 59 cm steel frame. Oh wait, I'd never sell that bike. ever.

I'm turning into Fred or Sean

So I haven't posted in a while and kinda been scarce all around. Brady, I'm sorry I didn't get back to you about riding Saturday. I was on a cleaning frenzy (since that's about all I can do that's constructive when on call) that lasted well into the afternoon. I didn't even check my blog or pick up my phone till Saturday evening. I didn't really want to face that wind again anyway.

Sunday's races were fun. I was practice officiating and found it quite challenging. Well, the cat 4/5/womens/juniors race at least. With 28 people whizzing by on different laps with fitness levels spanning the rainbow, it was difficult to keep track of finishing order. Luckily, the very experienced and wise teacher, Neil Weide, got most everything down for us. But it was still fun.

Some more interesting news. After I just put a link to the Lemond bikes website(among other team/bike/sponsor sites), I find this out. I have a Lemond Zurich bike on order that is taking a while, I think. The order did get faxed by the soon-to-be-missed Matt N right before the Trek Store US-wide super sale, March 27th - 30th, so I'm sure all the stores and the company as a whole are recovering from that. If there is any issue at all with me not getting the bike, I'd be perfectly fine with that. I'm stretching the budget and selling current stuff to make this carbon framed beauty happen, but I don't really really need it. So if I find out that they aren't going to take all my money, I'm ok with that. But, my guess is this is my last chance at ever owning a carbon bike. If it happens, I sure hope it's worth all the hype. If not, I'm going completely luddite. Steel frame, either down-tube or bar-end shifters, and 32-spoke wheels. I've been eying this frame/fork for a while and wish I would have seen it before I got my Bianchi. Especially after my successful venture with this product. The Reelight setup has been on my racing machine for a couple weeks now and I'm very impressed with it. On the Bike Master's Century, Doug was in the follow vehicle and mentioned that my rear blinky was as bright or brighter than all the others. I never have to think about batteries or even turning them on. They just work all the time I'm riding and are just about all I need for road riding. I do wish that the front light could mount up on the handlebar and have an option for constant light instead of blinking. I'm hoping the company will explore this possibility. Have your bike shop order you a set through J&B Importers. It's a little pricey, but well worth it to have extra safety that you don't ever have to think about.

This weekend is the Spring Cycling Classic in Lincoln. Come one, come all and enjoy the bountiful sunshine and mild conditions. Oh wait, it's gonna be 30-40, windy, and possibly still raining in the morning. Real recent forecasts have the rain/snow ending early Saturday morning, like before sunrise. So hopefully that will pan out for you courageous racers out there. I will be helping with registration, then following a group with a truck full-o-wheels. Should be good times. If you are racing, keep this mantra in mind. (Warning, harsh lingo in said mantra.)

Riding has been a little scarce recently, just like my posting. I work from 11:30am - 8:30pm Mon - Thurs this month, so it's hard to get up early, eat food, then get excited about riding alone for a couple/few hours THEN going into work. Much depression shall ensue this month. So if anyone has some hours free in the morning and wants to help motivate me to get outside, let me know. Otherwise, I'll see ya'lls on the weekends.

Races, on-call, family rides.

So from the sounds of things, riding on the first extremely nice day of the year is not going to be a huge group gathering? I'm on call in the AM till noon...thirty....ish. I usually skip out of the last half hour since we rarely get calls anyway. Lots of people are heading out of town to either Iowa for road racing or Norfolk for some single track action. Bryan mentioned something about riding with people he refers to as "family" but apparently, that doesn't include us?? What gives bro-skee?

So anyway, I'll head outside for a while in the afternoon if anyone left in Omaha wants to join. Respond or give me a call.

Last night and this morning.

Was only a difference of 3-ish hours for me. I went to bed about 2am, and was at various stages of waking up by 5am. I do not do well with little sleep. I know Bryan is a master at such feats, being that his job forces him to be, and he handles it amazingly well. When I'm on my 6:30am - 3:30pm shift at work, I do best when going to bed around 10:30pm. I went just slightly past that last night.

It started off with me cleaning my bike, which some of you know, I'm just a little finicky about. I started the cleaning process at 7pm and was done at oh, about 9:30pm. Everything is sparkly again, just the way I like. Seriously, if I can't look at my crankset and see it as a potential stainless steel plate ready to eat off of, it's not clean. So I put everything away and remembered I hadn't eaten dinner yet. Oops. I pop in a Kashi frozen pizza since it was quick and easy. Yummy....cardboard crust....

So I scarf down the pizza, watch the weather on the 10 o'clock news and discover that there's no way I'm riding to work in the morning. Especially not on my clean-enough-to-eat-off-of bike. Unless they were wrong about the rain, which has happened a couple times in recent memory. But it seemed like they were pretty certain, so I figured I should drive to work and therefore had a whole half hour more to sleep in, a very nice thing for Monday morning. I flip around the channels and find the World Series of Poker '07 championships on ESPN (8 - the Ocho, I love that channel...can't get enough of it). They were running back to back episodes (each an hour long) of this progression of elimination. This is a tournament where a ton of people start, but eventually, all the chips remain with a final selection of great/lucky players. It was interesting because the guy who is credited with making Texas Holdem poker popular in 2003, Chris Moneymaker, was knocked out early in the tournament. Mr. Moneymaker made the "sport" well known because he, as a 25 year old, got into a poker tournament with $50 and made it all the way to the end to win something like $1.5 mill. I remember watching that and thinking, "Wow, that's like hitting the jackpot, but you increase your chances exponentially by being a great player." Anyway, I watched a few hours of this tournament, so this put me at about 1:30am. My late dinner finally settled and I was ready for bed. Waaaaaaaaaay past my bed time.

Our condo loft has a skylight that sits right above our bed. It's a good thing to have when it's cold out cause the sun shines through and heats the place well. However, since it's right above our bed, when it rains it is LOUD!! I guess some people sleep well when there's a droning sound like that, but with the rain we get, it's quiet for a little while, then comes down in buckets, then quiets down, then pours again. So it's not constant. I sleep much better in silence anyway. So the rain started around 4am and I had my alarm set for 5:30am. There's nothing worse than being woken up before you really want to get up. Especially when you haven't had much sleep to begin with. Very frustrating cause all you want to do is sleep, but you got this rain coming in waves, then your cat notices you're stirring so it must be time for canned food, so she jumps all over you. I angrily drifted in and out of slumber till 6am, got up, got dressed, (lightly) kicked the cat out of my way since I was too groggy and would step on her if she did her normal clingy thing. I got in my car, drove slowly to work, parked in the neighborhood just South of UNMC (free parking is the right price, just not very convenient), and got very wet walking the 5 blocks before reaching the cover of a building. What a great way to start a Monday.

So needless to say, I'm on a lot of coffee this morning. Luckily work is light, but that means I have to do something otherwise I'm going to fall over and start snoring. And now, after proofing this post for the 4th time to catch all my grogginess-induced mistakes, I'm done.

How do you fair with very little sleep and a crappy Monday morning?

Edit: Oh yeah, and a weekend report. Saturday; 3.5 hours with evil headwind/lovely tailwind ride with Brady. Thanks Brady, for sticking it out with me and I hope your position issues are solved so bike practicing is more fun. Sunday; first 3rd of the Bike Masters Century. It was wet at the start, but got pretty nice, Bryan and I broke off early since we both had stuff to do and I found out the meaning of pain as we rode Bryan's work-to-home commute route. Being he rode that route on a single speed, I can see why it was just a little hard on the training. Rollercoasters have less ups and downs than that route. So overall, 3-ish hours each day, not a bad weekend. Man I love riding my bike. I can't imagine doing anything else. Yes, I'm that tired that I'm getting mushy.

Ryan F and Roxy saw me while riding yesterday.

See how I made it look like all 3 of us were riding. Well we were.

I was just creeping home from a jaunt to the Northwest into some abslowtively reconculous wind. I would like wind a lot more, or rather hate it a lot less, if my eyes didn't feel like burning during/after a ride where I cry almost the whole time. I have this problem where my tears are mostly oil so my eyes are usually dry and itchy to begin with. Add some wind and I get the nice 40-grit sandpaper effect right to the retinal area. I tried contacts once, very unsuccessfully.

So I was riding home around the Aksarben area when I saw R and R probably just heading out to face the fun. Hope you guys enjoyed almost being knocked over a couple times. I sure did. Not.

Mounted, pumped up and ready to roll

Interpret that in any manner you wish. But here's the end result.

My own response to Random Thoughts

Topic 1: Well, there's a couple things that Safari fails at.  1. I went into options and selected, "Open links in new tab," not "Open links in new window," however, many pages open up in new windows.  I like tabbed browsing.  I like having one window to work it all.  2. I use google docs and have a couple spreadsheets.  On other browsers, you can navigate web-based spreadsheets normally with tab and arrow keys and such.  Not so with Safari.  O well, time to go back to the regular browsers.  Some pages do load up faster though.  Pezcyclingnews.com most notably.

Topic 2: I'm getting in shape, but not in shape.  Well maybe.  I did the Wed night ride and couldn't hang too well.  There's 3 possible reasons why.  Number one would be not enough food/drink.  I was semi-strong at the beginning of the group ride, but rode solo for 1.5 hours before.  I didn't have an energy drink or food till I got to the shop to start the group ride.  I ate a pouch of Cliff Shot Blocks and filled a bottle with Gu2O.  So I had some fuel to start out with the group.  I really should have heeded my own advice and had more to eat/drink though.  After an hour or so, I was struuuugling up the climbs and getting dropped bad.  The droppers were: Kevin Limpach, Greg Shimonek, and Ryan Legg - all really strong guys.  But in past years, I was always able to keep up or drop them.  Reason number 2 was the intervals I did the day before.  This is not as good of a reason since Ryan said he did pretty much the exact same thing the day before and was still riding away from me on the hills.  The final reason is I'm just not as strong as them......yet.  I guess the past 2 days have been about the only time going really really hard this season so I have some time to make up some ground.  I do need to drop about 5-10 pounds to really fly up the hills again.  I'm probably going to have to give up pop and cut back proportions to accomplish that, though.  Probably a healthy choice in any event.

So my plans for the next few days are: Today, easy ride, we're talking 15mph average tops.  Friday, maybe another easy ride since I'll be giving blood at lunch time.  Saturday, a trip down to Lincoln to help out with the Training race our team is hosting.  Sunday is up in the air.  It's not looking to be great weather, but I don't care anymore.  As long as it's above 15 degrees, I'm just fine with riding.  Last Sunday, Bryan and I started at 8am and it was a brisk 20 at the start.  That was just fine as we had a great ride.  So if you have suggestions for a route/time/meeting place, I'm open to ideas.

Random thoughts

Topic 1: Apple must be trying to take on Microsoft or something.  Now, if you ever updated your Quicktime Player, or downloaded iTunes, Apple asks if you want to do an automatic download thingy of updates.  On some PCs I do, on others I don't.  I usually update iTunes when it prompts me, but I was surprised when the updater asked me if I wanted to install the Safari web browser.  Since I rarely use a Mac, I've never used the Safari Browser, so I figured I'd give it a try.  It reminds me a lot of Netscape(which I haven't used in years), but has all the nice features I like in a browser; auto-spell check, tabbed browsing, unobtrusive nav/settings bar, and simple layout.  I'm using it now to post this, and I may be using it quite a bit more in the future.  Firefox is fine, but it has a bunch of plug-in problems with Active-X, Flash player, and such.  If Safari works better with these things, I will probably make the switch.  Not that anyone out there cares, except for maybe you Mac users, but Apple did pretty good here.  I guess that would be one way to take over the computer industry, slowly make people rely on Apple products until getting a Mac just makes sense.  Apple owns the personal music player industry with the iPod and iTunes has always been the easiest to use of the online music purchase stores.  If they turn enough people on to the web browser and photo management software, I think many people would fork over a little more money for a Mac.  Now if Macs would come down in price......that would be a huge industry shift.  And I don't think Supreme-Master Gates would like it.

Topic 2: Intervals.  I forgot how great it feels to be in shape.  At work, I can leap up a couple flights of stairs and not even breath hard if I've been doing intervals and long rides.  Yesterday, I decided to head up North and do long hill repeats up the steady grinder of hwy 36 (between 680 and 72nd street ).  I start the interval of what I'd say was on the upper end of LT, and got to the top of the climb within 6 minutes or so.  I was feeling pretty good, so I figured, "Hey, why not head out to Omaha Trace to make it a 10 minute interval instead of doing hill repeats."  So I finish that interval going into the wind.  It was pretty tough since I was going against 15mph of chilly norther air.  The 2nd 10 minute interval was along the hilly/curvy section of Omaha Trace with more of that great headwind.  Since I have no HRM or Power meter, I was using perceived exertion.  The first interval was rather tough for my lungs whereas the 2nd was harder on my leg muscles.  I got to the turnaround right before heading down the hill into Ft. Calhoun and did my last interval with a tailwind.  Now that was fun.  I had a hard time getting up into higher LT territory because I was running out of cogs.  Flying at 30-ish mph on that road is a blast.  Some of the hills bogged down my legs, but I still kept the speed up there with the aid of the wind.  I had a nice spin home and felt good about putting in a solid workout.

The Trek Store is officially starting up the Wed. night ride again, so I will probably hit that tonight.  I'll probably do what Jon Randell and I used as training in the early season and leave work at 3:30, put in some time, maybe a few hill climbs then meet up with the group for some more serious abuse.  I'm gonna be one sore pup tomorrow, but it's going to feel great.

Check this out

SHIMANO DURA-ACE 7900 2009!

Tubeless win a Classic!

I'm sure that Bryan has read this. If not it came from Velonews.com

After racing the final 22 kilometers alone, off the front, Francaise des Jeux rider Philippe Gilbert crossed the finish of Omloop Het Volk last week in victory. It was the second Het Volk win for the Belgian; his first came in 2006. The 2008 win was special to two of his sponsors and was a milestone for road technology, because Gilbert crossed the line on a tubeless wheel and tire.

Over four years ago prototype tubeless road tires started popping up in the pro peloton, but it wasn’t until two years ago that Shimano and Hutchinson presented their tubeless system to the public. The technology is well received and should considered by those looking for a happy medium between tubulars and clinchers, including both Lennard Zinn and me here at VeloNews. The technology hasn’t exactly been wholeheartedly embraced, in part because the only manufacturers pushing it are Shimano and Hutchinson.

Het had the perfect roads — cobblestones, wet surfaces and short steep climbs — to capitalize on the advantages the tubeless system offers: Grip and puncture resistance. The week before the race Gilbert and his FDJ teammates reconnoitered the crux sections using the system. After the test Gilbert and three teammates chose to race the system, which is comprised of Shimano’s new WH-7850-SL scandium-rimmed wheels and Hutchinson’s Fusion 2 tires.

The FDJ riders have been training with the wheels since January. But a new sealant clinched the deal. With it, the team was confident the system is even less flat-prone than tubulars, said Frederic Vanoli, chief of technical affairs for Francaise des Jeux.

Even so, Gilbert did suffer a rear flat during the race, which is more likely attributed to chance than a fault of the system. The Belgian’s rear flat didn’t seem to dampen the team’s enthusiasm for continued use of the system through out this spring’s races.

Puncture protection was key, especially considering the rather high pressures Gilbert used (7 bar or 102 psi in the front and 7.5 bar or 109 psi in the rear). Het Volk has only 16km of cobbles, but on rougher course, the system’s ability to run lower pressures would be an advantage.

Despite the successes of the tubeless system on the battlefields of the spring classics and semi-classics, FDJ has no plan to bring the technology to the Grand Tours. There the lightweight of carbon wheels and tubulars outweigh the advantages of the tubeless system’s durability.

“In team Francaise des Jeux [we only use tubeless] in Belgium and the north of France with cobblestones,” said Vanoli, “not in stage races.”

For the rest of us, not racing at the head of a ProTour peloton, the advantages of comfort, grip and puncture resistance make road tubeless a viable technology that’s still worth a look.

The wind is evil.

I forgot how much it takes out of you to ride against a >15 mph wind. Yesterday I got in a little more than a couple hours. I rode into the wind for and hour and 20 min, then made it home in something like 50 minutes. Now today, it's warm out, but even more windy than yesterday. I also didn't get very good sleep last night, so instead of getting sick like everyone else is, I'm going to take the day off.

Who knows when the next time it'll be near 60 degrees, but I'm too pooped to enjoy it now anyway. Yay recovery day.

The Sorry post

Here's some apologies I have to make after todays happenings. I'll go anti-alphabetical.

Johnny - Sorry about the hilly route and dropping you on said hilly route. I think we were all feeling pretty frisky so the speed was un-Shabbos like up those hills. Glad you came out and suffered with us while you could.

Chris (Bryan's wife) - sorry about hi-jacking your hubby for an over-extended amount of time. The route we planned took a bit longer than presumed and we didn't realize this till we were way out there.

Bryan - Sorry for planning a route that made you late. We should have turned around when Johnny did and skipped the Blair Climb. It was fun though.

Brady - Sorry for putting you through the wringer when we discovered how late we were. And also not being able to fix the rear hanger issue. It makes sense that it's bent inwards being that shifting it all the way up can throw the chain into the spokes. Getting it straightened will remedy all the issues you experience today. Well except for the destroyed knee and damaged spirits with having a hard time at the end of the ride. But hey, didn't you get a new PR for distance? Got that going for ya.

Aaron - Sorry that you have to leave for Belgium where you'll get to experience amazing bike races and live a dream that most of us will never realize. Ok, I'm not sorry about that. I'm extremely jealous. Have fun kid.

I had a great time this weekend. On Friday I did absolutely nothing after my commute home from work. Then Saturday, Michelle and I cleaned like maids on crack so the place is much more comfy and clean now. In the afternoon, Michelle's mom and sister came over and we played video games, ate pizza and then topped it off with Stone Cold Ice Cream. Plenty of fun, not conducive to training, but absolutely necessary.

Then today, I get in 83 miles just under 5 hours and felt just fine - fitness wise the whole time. Even at the end I still had some power to fight traffic through construction areas. Some of the hills did take it out of me, but I think if I do some hill repeats at Hummel or where ever, I'll be just fine. Man I wish I could race a bunch this year. I guess I shouldn't feel so confident until I do my first race of the year. That will let me know if feeling good after an 80 mile moderately paced ride constitutes being competitive with other cat 2s. Probably not, but hey, 90% of sport is 100% mental.

Bike There Feature on Google Maps

Check it out sigh or not. I think it's a cool feature for Google to have.


http://www.PetitionOnline.com/bikether/

Grump

This has been an off week.

For the bike at least. I got plenty of stuff done around the house. But that doesn't help keep me in shape. Oh well.

PLANS!!
Sunday: 12:30pm
Place: Crane Coffee - 78th and Cass
Route: Head NW on trails/streets to hit either Bryan's Bennington route, or the Bike Masters route to get to hwy 31 then 30. Take hwy 30 East-ish to Blair. Once in Blair, ride through town and conquer one doosy of a climb on the NW side of town. After a break at one of many gas stops, we'll head SE to Ft. Calhoun. From there I figure the guys who want/can go longer can head to Boyers Chute, downtown, to where ever while the others who need to jet home can take the Omaha Trace to the trail, or head out West (Bryan's and others case).

Sorry to post suggestions so late, but hopefully this works out. I'm up for counter-suggestions if need be. My only constraints are that I will be ready to ride from my place at 12:20-ish and I have to be home about 6pm. So many miles are possible for me. Come join the fun!

Who's doing what this weekend?

The weekend's weather is not looking wonderful, but still ok. Saturday is my main issue. I'd like to have my afternoon free so a morning ride would be the way to go. Unfortunately, the morning is going to start out with a temp of 9 degrees. That's just a smidge too chilly to put a few hours in outside, but I might brave it anyway.

Sunday is where it'll be at, though. I can start riding at 12:30 and go till 6pm if I want. I'm tempted too since it'll be nice weather, and an early season century is always a good idea. I may not make the full 100, but I'd like to put in a 5 hour ride. Anyone up for the challenge??

Weekend update.

Well I didn't quite get in a mega-mileage weekend, but it was still a great time. So here is the report of such times of greatness.

Friday night was the 29er Trifecta. I got there at about 6:15pm figuring I'd catch up with peeps I haven't talked to in a while. The roll-out time was supposed to be 6:30, but Lincoln peeps had to get there and Shim had to put flat pedals on his fixie. Both situations completely understandable. Right. The group of about 35 got going a little before 7pm. Within 6 blocks we had 2 flats. Yeah, that was fantabulous. After we got going, it was really interesting watching the reactions of drivers and passerbys. Some people asked from their cars, "What group are you with," or, "How far are you guys going?" Most drivers that were going in the opposite direction on a 2 way street stopped dead in their tracks. I guess it was kinda weird seeing a group of 30 some cyclists coming at you with insane headlights. Ryan Feagan had a home-made light that had to be the brightest thing I've ever seen. Basically it was like a car's highbeams. He had it on strobe most the night so we could do shadow puppets on the trees as we rode along. Other notes of interest: Nate Woodman and Matt Gersib are magicians on their bikes. Nate had a fixie, but rode the thing like it was 2nd nature to him with skids, bunny hops, and some strong climbing. Matt would put on mini-trials sessions any time we stopped. He can ride his 29er like a BMX bike. On the route, there was this huge climb that I didn't know even existed. Just West of 30th St on Belvedere blvd, it's a 3 or 4 block climb that snakes back and forth. It was murder on a single speed. That is, unless you're Eric Brunt (the guy in the middle) who was on a 46x19 fixed. He made it look easy, along with all the other climbs of the day. I think he lives on his bike though, so that makes sense. So that was about 30 miles in 3-4 hours. Nice easy pace with lots of stops. Plenty of time to socialize and enjoy the night.

Saturday was a group ride extravaganza. I had 6 other riders at my house before we took off to join the Bike Masters ride, Ryan Legg, Brady, Matt, Sean, Ryan and Roxy. I was kind enough to let Sean use my racing machine while I used my commuting tank. We had to hurry to the BM ride since we started late and there was just a couple good climbs getting there. Then we waited as others were more late than we were. I guess that's to be expected when the lot is full of 30-40 people! We took off and the nice weather must have fueled some people's rage as the first 45 minutes turned into a hammerfest. The group strung out for a good mile as some wanted a nice leisurely pace and others had to show their stuff. I was stuck in the middle not able to show my stuff on a 25-ish pound 1x9 geared noodle. Everyone came back together at the Elk City turn, however. We headed towards Waterloo and I was able to keep up as it was mostly downhill. A flat happened right before town, so the group had a long rest break at the convenience store. After significant resting, we got going, but had to split from the group since a few of us had to get going home. Bryan, John P, Ryan L, Brady, Sean, Matt, and I ventured home. It eventually became a death march for half our group as the weather and life schedules have not been kind to most. Overall a fun ride with some very welcomed warm weather.

Sunday was slightly different. I got up and was sore all over. I hadn't slept well or enough the last 2 nights so I was feeling it. The weather outside was nice and sunny, but the ground was a mess after thawing. I knew the weather was going to get miserable, but I had to take Michelle into work so my only option was waiting till after noon. I was just hoping that the weather would hold off it's fury until later. Alas, my hopes were dashed. I was ready to call the day a lazy recovery day until Ryan F. had to call and make me feel guilty. I didn't want him and a visiting out of towner, Larry, to battle the winds alone, so I joined in the fun. We met at Ryan's in mid-town, rode down to 19th, North toward Hummel, did the climb once, then over Ponca Rd and 47th st. to hwy 75 into Ft. Calhoun. The climbing was fun, but man, getting onto hwy 75 and facing the 25-35 mph wind head on was quite brutal. I had forgotten how much drafting matters though. As soon as you would tuck behind the guy in front, it was easy pedaling. But when taking a pull at the front, it was a battle just to keep the speed above 14mph. Once we turned South-ish, we were ok though. We got in about 2.5 hours with some intensity and hill climbing so it was a productive day.

So only about 9-ish hours on the bike for the weekend, but it was a blast all the same. I thought I solved the issue with being inefficient on my commuter bike by raising the saddle some. I don't know what it is, but I can't be "fast" on that bike. I don't know if it's the frame's geometry or design and material that makes it feel like a noodle everytime I stomp on the pedals. I know it's heavy, but 8-10 pounds can't make that much difference can it? My muscles just ache while trying to power up climbs or hit a headwind hard to keep up with a group. Any time I take my race machine out riding, I can really mash without feeling sore at all. So maybe it is my position on the bike or the Q-factor of the pedals (stance width) or something else that makes the 2 bikes completely different ride experiences. Well at least the weather is getting nicer to where I won't need to use the commuter for rides anymore.

Shabbos +1

Yeah, I know Shabbos just ended. But I want to go again. Here's my plan:

Depart from my house (or somewhere else) at 7 or 7:30 and head SW, though to a different place than Shabbos. Back by 10 at the latest, though 9:45 would be better. Short ride, yes, but it's supposed to be 40 by 7 a.m., with 5-10 mph winds from the SSW.