Steak Night!

Surprise Winter Post

"It had to be done. I was so tired of looking at that Summer Random Post title" -- fredcube

Hey gang how's they going?  Absolutely jiggly, I hope!  Well it's been a long time since my last post.  I know, but I've been busy.  Let me tell you about it ...

I used to be a bike racer.  They called me "The Munsonator." Actually, they just called me "Munson," then I'd say "ator" under my breath.  That's my favourite joke.  I always tell it with a British acceyent.

I member this one race back then, it was called the "Shiver Me Timbers" and boy howdy was that one a doozy.

So then there were all these things that happened and details, etc. and Jon Randell won!

Do you want to know how good Jon Randell was?  Well, I'll tell you anyway.  Very.  That's right, I said it.  Randell was "Very" good.  On the bike.  Need I say more?  No?  Well guess hwat?  That's right, I spelt 'what' wrong.  that's because I want you to pronounce it that way (with the 'h' first).

So - guess hwat?  I'm going to say more even though I needn't.

I member this one time cube was riding with Jon and I.  Yeah - I know it should read "Jon and me"  but I just think it sounds fancier the incorrect way.

So cube comes up and says, "Uh, you guys.  You want to slow down or something.  My breath hurts from all your crazy fast riding shenanigans.  So I'm all sincere and crap and I tell cube what he can do with his request.  I look right at him (I slow down enough to do this) and I goes, "Oh dude.  Sorry man.  Jon.  Let's slow down for the cubester."

Then Jon's all "screw that guy, h'huh!"  Well that makes cube laugh so you know what he does?  He attacks!  That's right.  He couldn't even keep up with us.  So then Jon quickly dispatched the cubester to his eternal home at Cat 4 Avenue. It was horkelley!  I mean totally horkelley!

Ah but alas, those good times are over now and do you want to know why?  No?  Well I'll tell you why (with a capitol 'Y').

Fact one.  My wrist hurts.  I'm not saying what it's from, but let's just call it a injury and leave it there.

Secondishesly: I am saving up to pay for stuff I already bought.  Your mom doesn't grow on trees, you know!  That's my second favorite joke.  I always tell it with a Irish acceyent.

Oh face!

In the third corner:  I'm a plaid flannel camping campfire coffee making bike rider now. I know what your thinking.  Your thinking "It's you're, ya  dumb butternut."
Your also thinking "Camping sucks."

In the words of the great Samuel Jackman, allow me to retort - "You suck."

Hey, this has been nice.  We'll have to do it again some time.  Not.


P.S.  Munson.  Please don't revoke my writing privilege to this blog.  If you had any idea how much fun the last 10 minutes of writing mindless crap was for me ...  Also - was that so hard?  Let's go. Start blogging riding again.  We're getting the band back together.  Good Job!

Summer Random Post

I've done 2 "rides" this year.  By "ride," I mean pedaling a bike, not just to get from point A to B, but to have fun and ride with other people.  One of those rides was the OWL ride.  It was a good time and a welcome break from the monotony of the 2-3 mile daily commutes.  Same roads.  2-3 times a day.

So since I haven't been "riding," I can't really comment on that.  But what I can comment on is an interesting trend in bikes I've noticed and fully support, along with another trend I see as a severe detriment to bikes in general.

I've been building bikes at the local Trek Midtown store, which has taken place of pretty much any social life.  The biggest benefit of this is I'm paying my car off early with the extra cash(which also seems wrong in some way).  The secondary benefit is I like wrenching on bikes - it's like meditation to me.  Usual builds include lower end comfort bikes, lower end mountain bikes, and kids bikes.  Pretty banal stuff.  I'll build up a fancy mountain bike sometimes, but since the inner workings of suspension and hydraulic brakes are a mystery to me, I just make sure the normal stuff works - shifting, no brake rubbing, etc.

Sometimes, however, a nicer road bike will come through.  I used to LOVE working on those.  It was like the cinnamon sugar sprinkled on my bread and butter.  I would build the bike exactly how I would personally like it setup - tight brakes, crisp shifting, and aesthetically - the handlebars angled to have a nice flat bar top and shifter profile.

I tried to run my road bike that same way last fall, when I made sort of a comeback to riding and joined Strava, thanks to Fred.  This led to a pretty bad wrist issue.  I put the road bike up for the winter, then dismantled it for random parts this summer.  I decided to put it back together again recently, but wanted to try something different to avoid wrist pain.  I angled my shifters way up.  I first noticed this bullhorn shifter setup from CX and road cycling Pro Tim Johnson in the following video at about the 20 second mark:

2011 Tour of California — Intro from RAPHA on Vimeo.

Notice the stark difference in angle of shifters.  I thought this was just a random CX thing that only Tim Johnson had come up with, but then, after watching some of the Tour de Frank this year, noticed that about half the peleton is doing it now.  The look of this setup is kinda weird, but it's SOOOO comfortable.  I would highly recommend it.  

So that's the trend I'm liking in newer road bike setups.

The trend that really has me worried is the newest high end groupsets.  Mostly, I'm referring to Shimano's 4 bolt proprietary crankset, and both Sram/Shimano's new front derailleurs.  

Setting up a front derailleur, although sometimes difficult to tweak and make perfect, was a pretty straight forward affair.  With Shimano's new front derailleur, you have to go through all sorts of steps to make it function relatively well.  I guess I could try to explain it, but I'll just link another video:

I haven't even touched the new SRAM Yaw front derailleur, but after a quick view of some videos, it's also fairly wonky in it's setup.   

But by far, the biggest issue I have is Shimano's new cranksets.  Both on the road and mountain side, they are becoming increasingly proprietary.  The standard road 5 bolt 130 mm bolt circle diameter (BCD) has been around for more than, I think, half a century.  Now Shimano puts out a weird 4 bolt X-men inspired crankset on which only their VERY expensive chainrings can be replaced. This may change in the future if all other manufacturers hop on board, but obsolete-ifying decades of standardization seems like a bad idea to me.  

So that's what's been on my mind recently.  Oh, and I just found out the bike I've been commuting on weighs in at 34 pounds.  Ooofdah.  No wonder my quads are staying fairly strong even though I'm barely riding.

Spring Extra

Seeing as the Normal  Weekly  Posting guys sometimes do mid week or same-day extras and I usually post (but sometimes not) once a season, I figured I'd give it a try also.

Although my last post was not technically Spring, today wasn't technically Spring-like weather with a "Winter Storm Event" as the local news meteorologists liked to call a simple snow shower.  It snowed.  Whoopty fricken doo.  Stop trying to make weather extreme.  Unless, somehow, there's a crazy tornado filled with sharks, weather is never going to be extreme.  It is what it is.

With all the hoopla over bike race sanctioning on the mountain biking side of things, and my need to clean out my Google drive, I decided to take a trip down memory lane and look at my old training regiments and race results.  That was nearly 10 years ago, so my memory is pretty vague.  This, I'm sure, wasn't helped by the hundreds of times I rode around that damned Branched Oak Lake boiling my brain cells going as hard as I possibly could.  Seriously.  I remember one race where we had to share water bottles just to make it to the finish line since it was 90-some degrees with 1000% heat index or something.  I was on the Lincoln Industries Team and Spence was (and still is) on team Kaos and we were mortal enemies.  But I handed him a bottle on the last lap just so our finish line sprint could be fair.  However, it was more of a finish line squirm as we were all at some stage of cramping.

But anywho...Looking at some of the race results had me shaking my head.  In '05 and '06, there were multi-stage races(as in, more than 2 stages) where the cat 1/2 race had 40-50 people and the cat 3s had just about the same.  A few large teams of riders would come from all over the midwest to race our Nebraska events.  Now we're lucky to get more than 5 out-of-town people within a combined cat 1/2/3 race of 20-30 riders.

I'm guessing the big economic collapse of '08 is the cause of this downturn, but I remember it getting pretty bad even '07.  That was my last serious year of racing, and I think I was a cat 2?  Since those were my most recent memories, those are the ones I recall the best.  I remember being dropped from a cat 1/2/3 field of 20 since there was no place to hide and team cohesion wasn't really a thing. Aside from Kaos having a team consisting of a third of the pack and the 4 fastest riders in the state at the time, of course.  So races usually went: Kaos rider(s) in the lead break with 1 random person; another break with Kaos rider(s) catching up to the leaders; the rest of us in a VERY small pack with riders attacking to break up the field and weed out the stragglers (me).  Not a very fond memory.  But it was what it was.

Would I go back to that?  I dunno.  I switched over to dirt for a while after I got done with traveling and racing road, but I ran into the same issue - I was tired of the same routes I rode over and over and over for training.  Mountain biking was new, but then got old quick when all the local courses were 4 miles long and required many repeats for any length of a ride.  Again, the repetitiveness of it got to me.

So now I'm doing repetitiveness in the working thing, trying to really hit the debt hard.  Each day I've worked anywhere from 4 - 12 hours for the past 3 weeks at one or more of my 3 jobs - UNMC, bike building, and chip timing.  At UNMC, I work a fairly normal 6am-3pm shift, so that's nice albeit early.  It's hard forcing myself to go to bed at 10pm.  The work is not bad.  But now being supervisor, I make decisions that affect our group, not just me. So that's kinda stressful

A few days during the week and one or both weekend days I'll build bikes for the Trek Store.  That's only a few hours at a time, but it can be very draining after already working 8 hours at a previous job.  My weakly upper body and over-worked hands can do only so much bike wrenching before I get tired and start to make mistakes.

The chip timing thing is kind of a doozy.  It starts with preparing and stressing out a few days before the weekend, Friday night configuring the races and riders into the software, being at the races a few hours before the first race (this is where my new sleep schedule has actually helped), doing something related to the races for most of the day, getting home then dinking with results and spreadsheets and emails to get all the info out ASAP and finally either taking a nap or turning that nap into sleep since it's bedtime already.  And sometimes that whole process happens both weekend days.

Like the infamous Forrest Gump once said, "I'm pretty tired."

I remember over-training on the bike and how that felt.  You generally felt sore all over, had a grumpy disposition, and didn't want to move, let alone hop on the bike and do intervals.  But this over-working thing is something entirely new.  It's like...I'm tired in my soul.

I imagine taking a vacation would probably be a wise thing to do - at least from my UNMC job.  I'm getting close to maxing out my 240 hours of vacation time. (BAM!  Working for the State - mediocre pay with great benefits.)  I'd probably still build bikes for a few hours most days.  Gotta kill the debt.

Must eat all the debt...

Debt...

Brains...

Brraaaains...

BRRRAAAAAINNNSss....

A wee update

So usually nothing's new in my world.  I've been doing the normal riding to work with the occasional weekend ride.

I did one of those infamous coffee rides last weekend and it was a blast.  Scott Redd knows many different routes that, when I used to spend hours on the bike, would pass many times but never try. As a roadie, you didn't dare take your pristine machine over anything but the most direct paved routes.  Many a time on our weekly jaunts out to nowhere'sville, we'd pass some gravelly offshoot that rose and curved into the trees.  I'd glance their way and think, "where does that go?"  It wasn't until Jon Randell and I were done with training and racing that we'd actually try those random offshoots.  One of the first ones was in the middle of what is/was a commonly used road race course.  Randell said, "Let's see where this goes."



Now you may recognize this race course.  It's basically a vertical rectangle(ish) shape involving Church Road on the south, 310th St on West, Hwy 66 on the N to NE corner, then 334th finishing it up.  If you were to zoom in to it's vertically bisecting road starting in the South with 322nd St, you'd see that it barely qualifies as a road - definitely not to road bike standards.

So when Randell and I headed North on this "road" it got real interesting, real quick.  It's basically a jeep/truck access road with tire ruts, overgrowth, and some washed out places sprinkled in.  Then to add insult to injury, at the end there was a spot where water usually collects.  This particular ride, it looked like it was dry, but my road bike soon found out otherwise, pretty quick.  I almost endoed, but saved it at the last second. My front wheel was covered in semi-dry mud of the stickiest caliber.  Being in prissy roadie mode, I didn't want to get my cycling gloved dirty, and Randell was up the road (as he was always faster than me) so I just did a couple bunny hops to shake off the crud, then rode like hell to use centripetal force to get the rest off.

Well, that might not have been the brightest idea, as the mud on the side of my tires decided to eat away a little at my Carbon Fiber Fork.  It wasn't bad, but still, it was the beginning of my need to use a better bike for exploring these exciting new random roads that I had always passed by.  I have yet to find my perfect bike, but my Trek Ion is purdy darn close.  If it was slightly more utilitarian (bike speak for having braze-ons) and just a little more tire clearance, and maybe, just maybe, disc brakes, I'd be in heaven.  I could go all bike touristy and get a Surly LHT or Ogre, which I've seriously pondered, but I know I'd be pretty unhappy with the weight.  Granted, if I lost weight off my body and rode more, it'd be less of an impact.  But still, that extra 5-10 pounds of frame and disc brake weight can wear on you after hours in the saddle.

Here would be my perfect ride: aluminum frame, disc brakes (rear disc chainstay mounted, not seatstay), braze-ons for anything/everything, frame/fork clearance for 50c tires, and somehow, no toe overlap.  The no toe overlap thing is a function of frame design that I'm not sure would work out.  I don't understand all the geometry specifics, but anything road or CX has the front wheel tucked pretty far in for less mechanical trail, resulting in more stability for flying down the road in a straight line.  MTB bikes have pretty high trail, and geometry to allow quick maneuvering at lower speeds, so toe overlap isn't a problem with the front wheel sticking out there.  Salsa Vaya, or even the Fargo were close(although their newer versions are going more toward frame bag design, rather than many braze-ons for racks), but I know those bikes wouldn't be very fast.  I guess that's the conundrum - speed versus utility/comfort.

All this is a moo point since my current goal is to pay down debt, not buy new bikes.  Helping with that effort are a few happenings.  I'm building bikes again at the Trek Store Midtown.  I'll be doing Chip timing for races.  Also, my manager retired, so I took on a new supervisor position with more responsibility and a good bump in salary.  Our car will be paid off by the end of this year. My wife should finish up her schooling for Medical billing/coding in a year and get an internship as part of Metro's curriculum.  So all of that combined should make this one of the last summers that I'm living paycheck to paycheck.  That'll be a very welcome change.

Hopefully between all this extra work I can squeeze in some coffee rides, some off-the pavment beaten path rides, and some TGJ (Team Good Job) road rides.  I miss the days where most of my free time was spent either riding or planning my next ride.

Some day.

Soon.

Trying something new

So I'm trying this new thing where I don't destroy my wrist.

Oh, in case you didn't know, ever since I started joining rides on the weekend (3 whole weeks, WOO HOO!) my left wrist has been in agony.  I don't know what I did when, but it's been in pain for most of the summer.  It's most apparent after (and sometimes during) longer bike rides.  Also, changing my position on my roadie by dropping the handlebar height, made it even worser.  I love that position on the bike since I feel most efficient that way, but it's murder on my hands/wrists.

I could look back in the archives of this blog and find the time I originally sprained my wrist on a ride, but that would require some work.  I remember not being able to ride the Corporate cycling challenge and getting a lot of flack from Shim, for the "real reason" I sprained my wrist.  Ha ha.

HHHmmmmm...there's the time this last spring when we had the freak snowstorm and I went on a drunken bar hop ride with Scott, Pell, and company.  It snowed all day, we met downtown at 5pm when they were closing things down, we "rode" (and by rode I mean walked mostly) up the hipster highway to the Homey Inn. Afterward, I putzed home on Saddle Creek since no cars were around.  The whole ride no one really fell.  But right by Bakers, there was a crack in the cement I couldn't see because of the snow.  I fell over slowly, but of course I braced myself with my arm and I think I damaged the wrist right then.

I could go see a doctor, but I'm pretty sure they'd just say, "Stop riding your bike, you idiot."  So that's what I've been doing since last Sunday.  I've only ridden to work a couple days this week rather than every day.  I'm also not riding on Saturday since I'll be a groomsman in my brother in law's wedding.

Sunday ride?  I dunno.  I may flip my stem back over and see if the upright riding thing is any worse for my efficiency or any better for my wrist.  If not, I may have to go see the doc for some suggestions.

Intended usage Part 2

Shomer Shabbos +1!!! (Unless it's raining at start time?)

Meetup - Crane Coffee at 78th and Cass?

Time - 7:30am?

Riders - the GJ!T - Good Job! Team. (or anyone else who wants to show)

Up for suggestions on other times/places to meet.

Intended usage

Not that anyone will see this or anything, but I've been thinking that a 7:30 ride that mimics the WNW (Ft Calhoun ride) route tomorrow (9/14/2013) morning would be just perfect.  The reasoning here is that I have a commitment to my neighbors to be around during the UCLA college football game tomorrow.  If the ride lasted until 10:30, I'd be really surprised.

I'm tied for 4th

I now know how to Strava.

I've only done 3 rides - commutes, but I'm giving myself some time to ramp up the training.  I did lotsa miles last weekend and I plan to do more this weekend.  I'll probably do a couple more weeks like that before I start going after KOTMs.  This is mainly because I want my body to acclimate to the new/old road bike.  I've been strictly riding the Super Commuter (Its Slices! It Dices! And it's usually in a state of disrepair due to heavy use and abuse!).

Old Blue has been dusted off, made into my typical franken bike(with all component manufacturers represented - Campy, Shimano, Sram), and brought up to date with a GPS donated by Fred.

I decided on a whim, before I knew any better, to create a "segment" - ie KOTM section - on the little hill up 42nd street between Leavenworth and Emile.  I mapped it out and forgot about it.

Going back to check it a day later, I found that I was in 6th place with an average MPH of 9.7 or something.  I'm usually trying to creep up that climb as it's a block or so away from walking into work, so I'm trying to cool down by then.  Who did I find on the top of the list? One Eric Brunt; with an average MPH of 27!?!?!?!  I should have known better not to create a segment anywhere in Eric's workplace.  See, he delivers Jimmy Johns to this area and is always in a bit of a hurry.  Apparently someone needed sandwiches really bad at UNMC the day that Eric set that record.  I don't see myself ever beating him on that KOTM.

But there are many other KOTMs out there.  And I'm really looking forward to dropping about 20 lbs, ramping up the engine, and going after some number one spots.  Hey that reminds me:

Do you even Stava, Bro?

So now that I've ridden more than an hour for 4 days in a row, which hasn't happened in years, I feel like I'm back in the swing of things.  For some reason, where there used to be no motivation, I'm now really looking forward to my next ride.  I'm not sure what prompted the light switch to flick on.  Possibly my weight topping out at 186 lbs and feeling like a lazy sack o' crap?  It can't be the goading I get from my friends, because they've been trying all kinds of tactics for a few years - being nice, being mean, tempting me with bacon, etc.  But nothing stuck.

In any event, I'm back on the bike and having fun.  I don't see racing happening in the next couple years till I get more out of debt and my wife gets done with school and gets a nice job.  But I'll be working at getting faster and lighter.  I've never been good at structured training, but I still need goals and such - enter Strava.

As some of you may know....

Tangent: How many people even read this blog anymore? For that matter, who reads blogs in general aside from a few word smiths?  I like complete thoughts, wordiness, and run-on sentences, so blogs work much better for me, rather than Twitter or Facebook.  Other tangent: The race summaries of Gravel Worlds on Facebook were quite annoying.  I know that's some people's only means to convey their thoughts to friends and family, but Facebook is meant for annoying game requests, all things cats, and political misinformation - you know, nothing really useful, just entertaining - not really long descriptions of how epic the race was(I'm not bitter and kicking myself for missing that race...no). Original tangent: So if you read this blog, that means we're probably friends on Facebook and/or connected in some sort of social networking fashion so you'll know that...

I have recently joined the Strava movement.  It's pretty cool since it's basically Facebook for GPS strapped cyclists.  You follow (and if they post something you don't like, unfollow) people to see what they've done and where.  There's KOMs - King Of Mountains (why not KOTM for King Of The Mountain??? What makes "Of" so much better than "the"???) which tracks how fast someone rides a specific length of pavement/gravel/dirt/etc.  I've kinda always wondered who creates the KOTM courses?  Does someone just create it, then other riders happen upon it and Strava automatically knows they're attempting to best the KOTM creator at "That one hill on that one street?"   I guess I'll figure it out eventually as all I've entered into Strava world is my measly shortened commute to work.  It's pretty pan flat aside from the hill from 42nd and Leavenworth to 42nd and Emile.  I guess I could create a KOTM for that?  Why not?  Then I could try to best myself for that half a block every weekday.

Oh, by the way, the only reason my joining Strava was possible is because Fred lent me his spare Garmin.  What a pal.  Now I can attempt some of my favorite climbs around town I used to fly up when I was in shape and see where how I stack up to the current elite riders.  Hmmmm...  Maybe this is another mean tactic used by Fred to force me to get faster as I'm guessing my current times up those KOTMs will be pretty lame.

Meh, either way, it should be fun as I'm really looking forward to putting all the time I can on the bike.  Woohoo!!!

4 days in a row?

Beer soaked socks.  Different than GSV, eh?

On Saturday, Fred convinced me to take a "leisurely" ride with him on the Greenstreet Tuesday night route. I guess for Fred, it might have been leisurely, but I sure felt like I did after every Wednesday night ride I've ever done - a wobbly mess of tiredness.

It was a fun ride, no doubt, but I had to keep telling myself, "Boy! Fun sure is hard work."

After the ride I had my normal recovery drink - almond milk with a good heap of chocolate syrup.  I then showered*, fixed myself some leftovers, and of course had a beer.  Well, since I was all wobbly and tired, I first spilled gravy on our couch which I cleaned with my napkin, then I spilled beer all over our floor.  Since I was out of napkins, I moved on to the next best thing - random socks on the floor that had not been put into the clothes hamper yet.

So there you have it - beer soaked socks.

Anywho, I have ridden 2 days in a row, which goes against every training book in the world, as you're only supposed to increase your weekly mileage by 10% a week.  But that would mean going from my normal commuting 24 miles a week to 26 miles, then 28-ish, then around 30(or 31 if you want to round up), etc, etc.

I did the ride with Fred for around 55 miles on Saturday.  Then today, I rode down the Keystone, around to Hayworth park, up the Bellevue Blvd, through Spring Lake, to the South Omaha trail, to the Keystone again to home.  It was a mellow ride with my next door neighbor who's gotten in pretty decent shape.  I needed that ride after the "leisurely" ride with Fred.

So my plan is to ride Monday since it's a holiday and going to be much cooler, and also hit the Greenstreet Tuesday night ride and hopefully not embarrass myself too much being that it's a fast group road ride and I haven't been on one of those for at least 3 years.

That's 4 day's of riding with an increase of weekly mileage by about 2000% or something?  I might be undercutting that estimate a little.

So who wants to go on a mellow, not "leisurely" ride on Monday morning, or afternoon, or whenever?

*this is probably TMI, but I'm now adhering to rule #33.  Guess it's time to get serious again.

I'm never riding my bike again.

This last weekend was a doozy in terms of my part time job - that being chip timing for bike races.  2 evening crits meant the days were filled with data processing, setting up, working, tearing down, then more data processing.  Sunday brought the Corporate Cycling Challenge.  They wanted timing for that too, so after collapsing into bed at midnight Saturday night, I trudged downtown at 5:30am to get things setup for the chaos that is 4000-ish people becoming cats needing to be herded around.  After I got a very small percentage of the cats chipped up, all were loosed upon the Northern regions of Eastern Douglas County.

Good buddy Peter Boyd won the timed 42 mile trip in 1 hour 42 minutes.  After they cooled down a tad I chatted with a few of the guys I used to paceline with on this ride. Brady and Fred said it was a blast and I let them know I was hoping to join them for the event next year if someone else can do chip timing, or chip timing just doesn't happen.   Brady of course pointed out that I should say I'm not riding in next year's CCC since I always do the opposite of what I say I'm going to do.

Thanks for the gut punch, dear friend.

My last post was in the Spring and I was all giddy about training for Gravel Worlds.  There's something about going on a long bike ride that gets me all euphoric and gung-ho to ride more.  I start having grand schemes about training hard, getting faster, possibly trying racing again.

Then a week or 2 (or 3 or 4) will go by without any riding aside from my measly 3 mile commute to and from work.  Things happen - family comes into town, I have a month long stint where every weekend I do chip timing for races which takes up a ton of time over the weekend, the weather gets too extreme (wet, hot, cold), or I just generally feel lazy and don't want to ride.

So when the "registration deadline" for Gravel Worlds came and went, I let it go.  I was on the fence about a friend's wedding to attend the night before GW, but now I'm committed to it.  Originally in May, the whole month of August looked clear, race chip timing-wise, so I figured I could get some good long rides in leading up to GW.  Then in July, the NCA schedule all of a sudden filled up with races, and I was glad I didn't need those weekends to get things dialed in to survive 150 miles of gravel.

So next weekend, when everyone is having an EPIC time GRAVEL GRINDING away(obligatory overly used terms) I will be at the vet, getting our kitten her rabies shot.  Yay.

Then, I might just go for a bike ride.  I mean, I'm never riding my bike again.  Yeah, that's it.

3 Months

3 Months = roughly Gravel Worlds weekend.

I here by, do declare, I'm participating in this event.  It isn't official official as I haven't sent in the post card yet, so I first have to find a post card.  Then I can start training for it. Wait, what?

Really, I haven't been training or riding much at all, as if my shape didn't give that away.  I did a couple longer rides (literally, a couple; not the normal "couple" by roadie standards that involves 4+ hour rides once a weekend instead of twice) over the winter and spring.  So my endurance needs some help.  That, and figuring out how the hell to survive 150 miles on gravel.  I need to figure out food, hydration, and comfort.  So I will need to do long rides to test things out and see what works and what doesn't. It's pretty daunting to attempt this within just 3 months, but I need to start somewhere.

And so it begins.

SHABBOS RIDE!!!!!

Fred, Brady, and I are riding from 6:15am to 8:30am as per Fred's time limit.  So no later ride inquiries will be entertained.  Ass crack of dawn, or no dice.  Meeting place is Aksarben - nothing's open then, so get your caffeine fix pre-ride.  Road bikes are the weapon of choice.

I know Brady and Fred are fast, whereas I'm not at this point, so speed will hopefully be near conversational pace so I can catch up both on breath and in talking with good buddies.  Route will be decided as we go, but probably somewhere Southish.

EDIT: My general rule of thumb is ride if it's intermittent rain, but pass if there's thunder boomies.  As of 5:30am, there's thunder and lightning, so I think we'll go ahead and cancel the ride.  Seems like the last post I did trying to plan for a Shabbos ride ended the same way?  Is this blog cursed?!?

Title goes here.

Not much to report.  Figured I should try to put at least a few blog posts out a year.  Uh, yeah.

I rode in this morning in -10 degree wind chill temps.  It wasn't bad overall except for my nose and the tips of my fingers.  In case you're wondering, here was the clothing breakdown:

Base layers - wool long johns, midweight wool long sleeve shirt, wool socks.

next layer - Bonty commuter pants, cycling wind vest.

over layer - Minus33 lumberjack wool workshirt

Head - Pearl Izumi Balaclava, Bonty winter cap

Hands - wool glove liners, lobster mitten/gloves.

Feet - plain old Addidas Sambas pedaling my flat pedal commuter.

Also, to protect my eyeballs from becoming marbles, I wear some horrid shop safely glasses.  They are huge, but that also protects most of the skin around my eyes that the balaclava doesn't cover.

I was sweating by the end of the ride, but that was because I had a tail wind and was trying to ride quickly on my heavy commuter.

Thanksgiving was nice but tough.  Spent time with as much family as we could.  Christmas will be similar.  At least we'll have my lil bro, his wife, and their cutie pie 1.75 year old in town. She's talking some now so it'll be fun to interact with her.

I really need to clean my bike so I can't use that as excuse not to go on rides with people.  I meant to clean it last week so I could ride on Saturday with a few people I knew were heading out.  Sure wish I had a basement or someplace inside to make a mess with cleaning.  That will be one of my requirements in a house, whenever I get around to buying one - a basement shop with a drain.  Someday.

I need a bike ride

I propose a bike ride next Saturday.  SHOMER SHABBOS!

It's mah birthday that day, so I want to ride for a bit in the morning.  Not sure how far as I haven't been on a real group ride in a while.  The legs may not hold up for a 4+ hours.  Maybe if the pace was mellow.  So if you're training for cross and need to put in some efforts, please do so on a different ride.  It'll be small chainring and large cog selection for this rolling birthday present.

Ride specifics: from Jones Bros in Aksarben at 7:30am (be there early for coffee, if needed).  If the wind's out of the North, we'll head North. If the wind's out of the South, we'll head South. If it's East or West or no wind, well then we'll just ride in circles or something.

How's that for specific?

UPDATE: Ok, more specifics.  I will wait till later in the day on Saturday to see if the rain clears up.  Then I will definitely do a ride Sunday morning also.  Not sure when.

No 7:30am Saturday soppy ride for me.

Le sigh.....

Shomer Shabbos!

True story: I was riding down the Keystone to my bike building job when I came up to a guy shuffling along while hunkered over a stroller and talking on his cell phone.  I of course called out, "Passing on your left" of which I knew he'd be pretty oblivious.  What I didn't know is that there was a very anxious dog behind a fence along the trail that couldn't contain her excitement any longer when I passed between her and the stroller pushing reluctant father.  Lots of barking ensued and I think the guy nearly crapped himself.  I hear from him after I'm leaving the interesting scene, "Go ride on the road."

I continue riding on trying to process what I just heard.  "Ride on the road?"  On the road I usually hear the opposite, "Get on the sidewalk," so I was in deep turmoil as to where my place in the world should be.  Guess I need to invent a flying bike.

Ok, that actually wasn't a true story.  Or was it?  With the other guys writing great stuff I decided to join the party partly.  I read the reply that Fred made on an old post about joining their pact to write once a week.  His reply was a couple days after I made the post, but I didn't see if for a month for some reason.  I wonder if I should tell him that I did see that reply?  What do you think, Brady?

I do enjoy their stories though. You never know if they are telling you their version of real life experiences or just making something up completely.  I guess that's what makes a good writer.

So anywho, SHOMER SHABBOS!!!  I'm proposing an easy 3 hour ride from Aksarben in the morning (7am or 8am start, tbd) this Saturday.  It's gonna be a warm and possibly windy/rainy one, so the earlier in the day the better.. But it will be fun.  And when I say "easy ride" I mean that there might be some punchiness, but don't expect me and Randell to follow all of them. That's right, I said Randell.  As in Jon Effing Randell of cat 1 racing lore.  He has recently come out of retirement from newborn wrangling and brewing/beer drinking.  Well, he's still doing both in abundance, but adding easy riding to the unending list of parental responsibilities.  And like me, he's a little soft of the mid-section and formerly strong of the legs.  But we're working on it.

I imagine we'll head South and maybe do the old Wednesday Night Worlds route, or maybe hit the Glennwood Loop.  However, those routes might delve into the 3-4 hour mark.  We'll see.  2.5 hrs has been our norm for the past few weeks.  Bumping up to 4 might be a tad much.

UPDATE!!  We will be leaving Jones Bros Cupcakes at 7:30am.  Arrive early if you want a cuppa somefin.

So I was at this graduation party the other night and I saw this:

Well actually, I added the knife part, but then I walked over to the bookcase and saw something that caught my eye.  Could it be?  It was a copy of Catch-22.  Where are the snowdens of yesteryear anyhow?  (I added the anyhow for dramatic effect).

Oh, so that's where it went.  Hmm.  Then a few days later I had strawberry sherbet for lunch.

So yeah, I can ride tomorrow at 6.  Sounds good.   Hey do you guys know this Rafal Doloto fellow.  He was facebooking about a ride tomorrow morning.

Maybe I'll take up Hard Liquor

Yeah, yeah, it's been a while. What's the old saying? "If you don't have anything nice to say, don'tsay anything at all." Yeah.

Aside from the once easy but now more difficult 3 mile commute to and from work, riding has been on the back burner. Even with all this nice weather.

I have ridden from work to the bike building job for Trek Papio a couple times. But I've been zonked after that, so I fear what a Wednesday Night Worlds or fast weekend ride could bring.

So to get away from the epic pasttime of video games, I wanted to try something new. I also needed a new belt for work as my current one is somehow shrinking. What?

I picked up a basic leather working kit from Tandy Leather. I had tried leather working when I was much younger without great results. Now that I'm more patient (maybe less ADD?) I can put in the time to get good at the stamping, carving, tooling, etc of fancy leather working. Besides, my work belt is just too tight even with the added hole on the end. What?

Would it be cheaper and healthier to eat smarter and exercise more? Well yes. But that would take time away from leather working and drinking beer and Playstation and ....

So anyway....

My big bro and a few other people I know have posted requests on Facebook and gotten great results. Need a cheap beater car to get you through the year? Someone on Facebook might have one. Need baby stuff because you have no money at age 19 and work at a restaurant? A well-to-do couple might have loads of things they'll never need again since all their babies are in school now.

I ask for a simple slate of steel or smooth rock for my leather working hobby on Facebook and get this:

friend 1: Only if you build me a leather mask....

friend 2: can you make me a nice Brooks saddle?

friend 3: Check any counter top company like Martins or Universal. They have remnants laying around I think you could pick up pretty cheap.

friend 4: Stupid granite taking up all that counter space.

friend 5: I have a big piece of concrete in my backyard, I will check the dimensions for ya. It is a little jagged around the edges, however.

Three comedians and a couple helpful responses. Alas, I guess that's the way most internet posts go. Thank you friends, for the suggestions and laughs.

I asked around at work too and found out that my boss used to do leather working as a serious hobby/extra income. He has a ton of tools and books about it. He also brought in a couple slates of granite for me to have. Awesome!

Not awesome was lugging it home in a messenger bag on the bike. I came home and had to know how much I was toting:

Along with that, I had some books. I'm guessing I had a loaded road bike in my messenger bag. I survived, but was worried about tipping over at stops.

So, I'm gonna put together a couple items to get some leather working in. Then I'll get my belt all fancy and nice lookin.

Then I might combine all my new trades and make this:

Anyone know of a good cheap vodka?

Cue the comedians!!!!

Yay new year!

It's 2012 and according to some, we won't be around this time next year. Meh, whatevs.

My last post stated that I was riding more and such and so on, but that has waned. It's tough to stay motivated and ride solo which means on the trainer for those that work till it gets dark. And the group rides sometimes are demoralizing since others can hold a conversation at their easy pace going uphill while I'm above LT and drifting off the back.

Meh. MEH I SAY!!!

I need to lose 10-20 lbs. If only I could go on a bike ride without my bike. That would drop the weight right there!!! I tried to cut out breakfast to reduce caloric intake, but after a few weeks of that, I saw no change in weight. If anything it crept up a pound or so. I think I snacked more in the evening after starving all morning. So that didn't work.

Now I'm going to try to change my liquid consumption. I've tried it before, but I think I really want to cut out beer and coffee. I know that's lunacy to most cyclists if not most the population, but I'm tired of spending the extra mullah on beer and always needing an extra boost in the morning from coffee. I've been off the beer for a week. Yesterday afternoon was rough as I was really craving one, but I made it through with a few tall glasses of water. Now I just have to cut out the morning joe without going into convulsions due to a caffeine headache. I have titrated down to 1 cup each morning this week and will try to be done with it over the weekend. Well, "cup" meaning 16oz or so, not the 8 ouch cup of coffee that doesn't exist anymore. I know beer has a bit of calories, but the way I drink coffee - with cream and sugar - is part of what's keeping me plump. I recently read somewhere that the caffeine in coffee transports sugars to your body quicker. Since I don't burn those sugars while I'm at work, I store them as fat. I know I could just go with black coffee, but doctoring it up makes it barely palatable as it is now, so I don't think I could go that route. Besides, if I want to feel some actual jolt from coffee I have to down half a pot now. I miss the days when one cup made me feel like a meth head. Not that I know what a meth head feels, but I remember first trying coffee and feeling like I could see into the future.

I never remember seeing past 2012 though. Hmmmmm......

Fire in my belly

I just had a great weekend of riding with good buddies.

On Saturday, E.O'B., Bryan, Brady, and I did a fun little loop to downtown, up Hickory hill for the coming weekend's Hickory Hill Climb Challenge (which I'm not going to do very well at), the hit up good ol' Bellevue Blvd before catching the tailwing express home. Good times.

Then on Sunday, all 4 of us met up again at Seymore Smith park for some CX action. It was tons of fun lawn racin' as Shim calls it. On a side note, anytime I partake in CX anything, I keep thinking of this video:

I have never mastered the flying leap remount so I always have to do the "Step N Hop" remount. Not graceful at all.

Anyway, back to the fire in my belly. After all that cycling goodness over the weekend, I got up early (thanks in part to going back to standard time) and went to the gym to get some non-cycling specific stuff worked on.

So now, it's Monday, I've come off a few days of some great workouts, and I feel this heat radiating inside me. It's like I have this anger and rage. I feel like The Hulk. Well, ok, maybe not as enraged as The Hulk. But at least half as much. Ok, maybe a third.

Hopefully I can keep this fire stoked and shed some of the flub that I've amassed over the last couple years of little to no riding.

Then, maybe I can get fast on the bike again.

Then, maybe I can learn a flying leap remount.