Simi Ride

Went out and did the Simi ride this weekend. First off, gotta thank the wife for the hall pass to spend the day driving up there and riding. Good chance to tese the legs against the local big boys. It was also fun to get out and do a ride that I did on a regular basis back when I was fast. Some of the same fast guys are still there, and some are new.

As far as how that went: Just call me Second Group Sally. Second group up Norweigian, second group through the valley, and second group up Seven Minute. Sally's gonna have to get her legs under her before March hits. Second group ain't gonna cut it.

Legs were a bit heavy Sunday, but not as bad as expected. I still got a good three hours in, with very little bitching to the family when I got home about having to walk up and down stairs repeatedly. I expected that there would be much more bitching. Maybe things are starting to come around. They better be... only five weeks till the first race in ten years.

An open letter to T.O.

Dear Terrell,

Please catch the ball. In the words of your publicist, you have 25 million reasons to.

Sincererly,
Cowboy fans

Race weight

Well, let me spell it out to you in table format for easy reading:

	Weight	Uphill speed
December 1997	135	fast
December 2005	155	N/A
December 2006	135	almost as fast

As you can plainly see, the weight is now what it should be at... the fitness isn't there yet, but I'm feeling kinda fit for the first time since the pseudo-retirement. (You acutally have to have done something to "retire." I did something in my own imagination, thus I retired in my own imagination.)

Nonetheless, it's nice to look in the mirror and not think "You friggin' fat ass." My wife thinks I'm nuts for weighing myself twice a day these days. She never knew me when I raced, and never knew any racers. She's quickly learning that we, especially us climbers, are second only to supermodels when it comes to obsession with weight (see also: Rasmussen, Michael).

We'll see if all this work pays off in a couple months when the first race rolls around. The good ol' USCF downgraded me to a 3 of all things, so we'll see how much of a has been I really am. I can tell you this much: That new bike was a waste if I don't at least earn my entry fees back in these damn cat 3 races, assuming the 17 year old "I'm gonna be pro" doesn't crash me.

Yesterday's video I spoke of

Here's the Wellens video... Watch about one minute in. In the words of Jim Ross, "OH MY GOD!! Is that Bart Wellens' music?!?!?"

Torn

Well, it looks like Astana will be getting a license, while Genevieve says she's never racing again. The question is do we really care anymore? In fact, the first three stories in today's update on CN were somehow related to doping. I'm beginning to think I enjoyed following pro cycling more before Festina - when we all just closed our eyes to the doping issue. Kind of like the rest of the country still does with football... or basketball. Tell me that a few extra pounds or a couple more inches on your vertical leap wouldn't be worth a few million a year in extra salary. Why is nobody talking about this? Anyhow, the Chargers Shawn Merriman just got busted for 'roids, served his four game slap on the wrist, and nobody bats an eyelash when he comes back. Crazy.

Anyhow, it was Antarctica cold today in SoCal. It was 36 when I hit the road today. Dammit, I live here to avoid that kind of crap. I had to put on arm warmers and everything. Fortunately, weather.com tells me that by the weekend it should be back to the 70s and I can again cast aside the cold weather clothing. A white Christmas can kiss my ass.

And finally, check out Bart Wellens about a minute into this clip. Shawn Michaels would be proud of the sweet chin music.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoDQEWZ5FgM

(Sorry... YouTube wouldn't let me post the vid for some reason today)

Mad Skills

I'm no mountain biker... but I know mad skills when I see them.

Thanks to Doucheblog Cycling for this find.

Rest days

During phase one of my racing career when I was younger and I had few responsibilities and few bills, I loved rest days. I'd sleep till I woke up (read: no damn alarm). Then, I'd wake up and have a nice sized breakfast (read: 2 bowls of Oh's! or Frosted Mini Wheats). Next, if I was still in college, it was off to class... maybe. If I wasn't in school, I'd hit up the video game system du-jour of the time for some Madden. Finally, when the evening rolled around, I'd round up some like minded individuals for a night of debauchery.

Now a rest day consists of getting up to an alarm, tossing back a cup of coffee too fast to enjoy, and eating breakfast in the form of a granola bar on the way to work. If I'm lucky, I might get an english muffin in the toaster before I leave. That happens rarely. Then it's a typical day of work. Since it's a "rest day," that usually ends with me staying late to either catch up (usually) or get ahead (ha!) because I'm not riding that night and I know I'll cut out as early as possible the rest of the week to ride. Finally, when I get home, it's doing the work around the house I blow off the rest of the week because I'm either riding or tired from riding. Not much of a rest, if you ask me.

One thing, however, didn't change from my racing life 10 years ago: I am again scheduling as much as possible in my life around my bike. I don't think the wife is a huge fan of that. And I still bitch about things when they interfere with my riding. I'm almost positive she doesn't like that.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go bitch to the wife about the valuable pre season training I'm going to miss on our vacation in a couple weeks.

Christmas came early!

Thanks to the wifey, I got me a new toy. I couldn't convince her to spring for a PowerTap, so this was the next best thing. Plus, I love that it tells me how many feet I climb on a ride. Here is my first ride with it. Now if I only knew what to do with the data.

I'd show you today's ride too... but the trainer while it was raining outside just isn't as interesting.

As an aside, Romo didn't look quite as hot tonight. Let's hope it was a one game abberation. He's still 100 times better than Interception Drew.

Hill Repeats

Well, I'll be damned.

It's been a good ten years since I did any sort of hill repeats. Let me tell you - in ten year's time nothing has changed. Hill repeats still suck. They hurt. They last longer than they should. They are not fun. They make you fast.

The last part (pain), is of course, why we do them. Which brings me to my next point. Why do we do this? Cycling is not a fun sport. Object: Hurt more than the guy next to you. We strive to be in more pain than the guy next to us. At any particular competitive level, we're all within a few percent of each other, fitness wise. Thus, if you can hurt more than the other guy, you got a good shot at winning. The more you hurt yourself in training, the better you race. Most of us would qualify as OCD.

That being said, I'd go into business with most cyclists. I know they'd give their all to make any buisness venture work. If you have the work ethic to successfully race a bicycle, you can make a business work. There's no difference. Learn what techniques work best and put those into action. The only difference is business does not take a genetic advantage to succeed at an elite level.

Bill Gates - get your ass on a bike and lets see how you do.