Come on VOTE...

race cross when cross racing is supposed to happen?

YEAH

VOTE

stop the hemmoraging into the summer that these silly August and September CX racing are creating...

it isn't acceptable to race cross and sweat... edit: okay so not quite true but... ya know what i mean
we need to be racing in January, don't save it for the Belgians!

head over to CX forums and VOTE

But... sometimes they are helpful.

The whole mental side of racing that PEZ has been running identify my weakness. Cronoman calls it the muscle between the ears.

Marvin Zauderer has a great take on the mental side of racing. The latest installment in the series is up over at PEZ.

What rang true is everything leading up to the TT last night. The negative anxiety "oh man i'm late" "can i make it?" fueled the anxiety leech on my mental and physical strengths.

What i do know about training and plans and what to do is this: Don't do as i do. I'm still figuring it out. The tap is helpful.

Helpful in the mental way. Between the ears. seeing what wattage is there helps me mentally focus on something other than the pain. it gives me a strong positive to counter the negative of suffering.

Power ain't for everyone, it certainly isn't needed to go fast, but when Lemond tested out the first generation of the SRM, well he knew there was some amazing stuff to be gained using that technology.

Reducing the pain and suffering to a number is helpful, for ME.

For me, i need to re-read and internalize all the articles that Marvin has written about the mental side of cycling/racing/training.

And yeah, at some point i need to install a decent training system. A plan. Right now the plan is life. Commute. Take advantage of the moments on the bike to either not get slower and maybe find some way to get faster. It definitely isn't ideal. It definitely ain't gonna have me kicking Mahk the Shahk's butt in cyclocross, but it makes it possible to compete. And to compete well by my standards, at this moment, with the life that surrounds me.

but that isn't here or there - it just is...
working on being positive is not just good for me as a competitor, it is good for me as a person... being positive is good...

So the run down at PEZ for those with time to kill and nothing more productive to do than add information to your thought process:
1 Train your Mind
2 Train your Mind 2
3 Positive Self-Talk
4 Managing Emotions
5 Concentration
6 Communication
7 Suffering

If you head over to Whole Athlete's web page you'll see links to those articles above ("Printed" in PEZ) and this gem:

Recovery.pdf
rest = growth hormone production... i need more of that stuff...

well... the mental introspective mouth will stop the flow through the fingers...

Someone just turned the air handler back on and the office filled with cigarette smoke... joy oh joy... nothing like someone taking a smoke break outside the fresh air intake...

peace
G

two different ways

video linked from coach curly

and from gwadzilla - a unique way to get there

and not anything positive from France (meaning test results). Because maybe negacoach is right, how can you convict with a corrupt system. But then you could argue that the testing and the sampling isn't corrupt, just what happens after the lab rats do their work.

ANYWAY.

Positive. Start with Cyclingnews and their Q&A section. The chocolate milk study horse reared its head again and this time with a great perspective. One that can apply to the driver of the "i don't have power" whaaambulance (referring to murat's pickle post). I guess in references it rather vaguely but still. Let's take the quote/question directly:

What's the scientific term for reaching a completely different conclusion when presented with the same facts?

Skipping the direct answer to the question, the most important part of that is the facts. The facts.

If you don't have the facts you cannot even hope to compare conclusions.

But ya gotta get the facts some how. And this brings me back to the Cyclingnews bit.

I won't snip the whole thing... just this:

Look at the data, challenge it, but offer thanks also that some party, financially interested or not, has forked over the dough to perform such an expensive study.

A bad study with ulterior motives will be transparent when you actually look at the data. Draw your own conclusions but draw them based on your review of the author's facts. But be sure you gather enough appropriate education to make an effective analysis of the data/facts.

But it is true. It may have been the Dairy Council that payed for that study. That said if you wanted to go at it from the Gatorade side and say "Look, chocolate milk, gatorade - no difference, i'm using gatorade." that would be a valid outcome of the findings.

Feel good can't wait for part two thing written by JD. Short but good read.

Now as we are poking around on the blogosphere (that JD points out has so beaten the drug scene like a long dead horse)...

Wade's bearing comments:

Matt I hate to break the news to you but when I was back in the bike biz there were some tests done on bearings. They were done on the track. There was no difference between bearings. They even cleaned all the grease out of one wheel set, adjusted the cones so it would barely move when you spun it by hand. Times, wattage, etc. remained largely unchanged...

comment #7 there towards the bottom.

And yeah, the toke still has a mythical draw for me. granted i only raced it in the spring, slight drizzle, cool to cold weather, ya know, PERFECT. not this hot sunny crap... Next year i would like to make it an "A" race. What ever the hell that means.

Anyway - interesting stuff there Wade... and to think people are spending money on ceramic bearings? Bearing friction is such a MASSIVE energy sink isn't it. *smirk*

Positive right?

Well let us combine the bike race beater car with a cyclocross skills god.

take a look:


many thanks to Mud and Cowbells for the video link posed over there yesterday.

Just for Il Bruce: Had a big plate of linguica and peppers over rigatoni last night... mmmm mmmm taste... I can't get enough of that stuff.

That and almost forgot. GeWilli's "team" will be hosting a big ride for Il Bruce's "club" should be an interesting event on sunday. If ya out and about looking for a casual road ride stop into the sponsor shop.

peace - for now
G

14 mph headwind all the way home...

64% humidity and a mere 83°F

wooo hooo

and looking like i might dodge the rain bullet for the am AND pm commute!

the clean palate at least:

Mayo tests positive for EPO

I would be lying if i said i was suprised...

And i guess i didn't read closely enough (meaning read the thing at all)...

Vino got pimped 2x! Both on the 21st and the 23rd. And BOTH A and B samples from BOTH days showed "two distinct blood populations"

hmmm - yeah Jacobs and Suh are gonna get him off. Because, clearly he is innocent. Maybe someone put blood in his waterbottles... or someone cut themselves both days taking his blood... or... SOMETHING, but yeah - he's clean... uh huh.. clean like OJ...

This news sort of makes me wonder how many more cases will come out. Are some of the labs actually doing their job of disclosing the information through the proper channels?

If so, how many more will pop up in the next few days?

CNews put up some new info...

"At no time had he been a suspicious rider, on the contrary," he concluded. "Mayo passed all the UCI controls, all the internal controls, and he had never been suspicious. This has been bad news."

What i gotta say to that is:
The shit's broken. If he passed all those damn controls, then the controls are effed up.

It looked pretty much like that this morning on the ride in. The thunderstorms that unloaded water had moved north as we were heading along the bay. I thought "Damn i need to take a picture" then realized i have... while the quality of light might be slightly different... it still had the same feeling...

solo prompted a moment of introspection...

where was i 2 years ago?
in cycling terms?

I was the heaviest i have ever been in my life. I couldn't button 37"waist jeans comfortably. I couldn't ride the bike in the drops. I could barely get myself and the bike up the speedbump that is the small rise in the bike path.

Jan-July in 2005 saw me get on the bike, but, really only for a few times in march, maybe once in june... all extremely low intensity, as you would expect for someone who'd only touched the bike less than a dozen times a year since 2000 when cyclocross became too painful without miles in the legs.

2 years ago i probably couldn't sustain any sort of speed. I was out of shape. My muscle memory was sort of there but who know what it remembered other than there was a time in my life when i rode a bike every day, EVERY day for years.

So measuring the number of hours i've got against others may not be a good mark. Don't compare how many i've ridden compared to you. Lets look at how many i've ridden compared to me. last year i'm guessing i probably maybe had 100 hours? Maybe at this point? I don't know.

I do know that i feel like i'm in a better spot in terms of legs heading into cross season. And that counts for a lot. That mental game is pretty critical, because all the fitness in the world doesn't do you a heap of good if you don't play the mental game just right.

This whole competitive cycling discipline is hard to explain to people who don't do it. Why doesn't the strongest rider win every week? Certainly there is ONE rider in each catagory who by all strength, power, endurance, measures... on a purely physiological basis, who is better than the rest. Why doesn't that rider win every time? Sure sometimes, maybe most of the time they do win, esp at the Masters levels.

Mt biking and Cross seem a bit different. There are limitations to how fast you go around the course that don't always have to do with physical power/strength. Bike handling, reading the right line, body english, balance, technical skills... Getting on and off the bike cleanly and fluidly in cross can make the difference in equalizing strength differences between riders. But then those skills aren't much different than the skills that can neutralize strengths on the road i suppose. Those are skills the same but harder for some to get a hold of than the Cross ones.

But hey, once i can figure out how to translate the fun i have racing cross into the road races and that, then well we'll see how a road season shakes up.

Considering how little racing experience i have on the road in the last 10 years (mt bike and cross racing in michigan, coupled with the 40,000 miles a year driving to and from work) I should be (and when i remember) I am quite happy with where i am.

But just think, if i used all that stuff the guy is saying Cunt-i-door used well then maybe i'd have some results to go with the races...

Of course instead of actually taking insulin i could just drink milk, right? And i'm so loaded with testosterone that the T:E ratios of people in my draft get screwed up! But I can't deny that the asthma meds would help my relatively (compared to others of my same physical size) diminished lung capacity.

Oh well... it (the tour) was "entertaining" and that's what pays the bills, right?

At least an "american" team won and that should help hold a margin of interest, right?

Oh well. The wheels keep turning don't they. The pedals need to be pushed to get over the top of the mountain.

It is going to take some serious work before the sport starts flying along down the hill free from the burden that doping is creating. I do feel that "our" sport is one that probably is among the cleanest of the big market (globally) venues. And maybe that's what hurts so much.

Oh and caffeine. Can anyone imagine racing with zero caffeine in their system?

peace
G

That is all i've got recorded on the 'Tap since Feb. About 4-5 weeks since jan have not been recorded... so i'm probably well over 250 hours on the bike.

The tour is over. Long live the tour.

Question #1: What is the next step in medicine?

Gene therapy...

Question #2: What if you were able to turn on/amplify natural processes to increase hemoglobin production, and hormones to aid in recovery?

Would that make you fast? And clean? I mean it isn't a performance 'substance' if your body is making it... is it Lance? What better place than to get such "gene therapy" than say... um... bristol meyers squib???

But the tour is over... right? Some 24 year old kid won. And it continues. Sick near death in hospital = Tour victory recipe. Worked for Lemond and Lance... and now this Operation Puerto kid...

Had some notes written down on a bit of paper, but that bit is at home and i don't feel like dredging the brain for them other than this one:
Is it possible to make chocolate ice cream too chocolaty? Appearantly yes. It is possible. I thought it was pretty good but, i guess it was too rich for everyone else... gonna have to make up a batch of vanilla to serve with it...

So the Toke was this weekend... Good thing i didn't have plans on racing it. My legs were still nuked from Wed/Thurs... This morning riding in felt okay... not too bad. Kept the watts low, and started focusing once more on the aero position, and holding it, in hopes that Thursday rolls around and i can stay in the tuck the whole time.

Got the Rolf Front fixed. Only cost me a 20" Trek kids bike. meaning i got the spoke fixed and bought the oldest a bike that now fits her... and that matches her helmet.

Ah well... things have settled down now here at the Picture factory. It is somewhat annoying. The three weeks of the tour are THE busiest of the summer. Now that the tour is over, i've actually got time to sit at my desk and do all the PDF editing and SOP writing i need to do before the fall. No. It couldn't have been slow DURING the tour so i could do all that while listening/following the tour (not that i would have this year but it would have been cool to have the option ya know?). Anyway. Git out and ride.

G

To those who profess the race to win, for results... or the race to motivate, to give some purpose to a passion, to give some fire in the daily rides.

Do you go out and race because you can win? Because you believe you can win? Or do you go out measuring marks like how you finished relative to the guys you've been finishing around all season?

Last year in cross there were three of us who kinda used each other as markers, did i beat Bill today? Did i beat Bob? Did they beat me? Finishing in front was a victory. Heck i dunno what it would be like to actually win something. Okay, scratch that. Winning the series back the first year i tried cross, that was pretty cool. Despite that one season, finding victory in how you raced, even when not finishing first is important.

When i have a good race and the girls are there cheering Go Daddy Go... that's a victory that can't be matched. Knowing i came to the line prepared, focused and ready to race to my potential, and having someone there, who is excited for you, just because of who you are. That is pretty amazing.

I'm not a gifted athlete. I never was at the pinnacle of a sport. The closest i got in High School was the final cross country race when i finished 7th on the team. That meant i got a varsity letter. I've been pretty much a mid- to back of the pack 'racer' stronger than many but lacking the muscle between the ears to maximize the training i put in.

I sometimes wish i had the time to go to enough road/crit races to achieve some level of proficiency. But then i have to balance against everything. The scales tip towards cyclocross.

Aki's got a very passionate web log entry today that triggered this sleep deprived ramblings i've pounded out on my squeaky keyboard. I may not win any bike races in the near future, but i can't ask for a better position in the life race.

gotta be positive and grateful...
g

I like that guy. Something about him. Oh yeah, he's a big sumbitch.

His latest PEZ diary is fantastic.

that's all...

go read it...

I'm a big freaking dumbass.

Seriously. How do i draw such conclusions?

By demonstrating to myself the limits of my idiocy.

How is that for fahkin positive self talk?

Where to start?

Well one thing i've noticed is that changing cassettes (and probably not using a torque wrench to put the lockring on) causes the PowerTap hub to read differently.

Wednesday night i put the wheel covers back on the PT wheel. Slapped the Spinach bars on and well all that's good to report, eh? Well yup. Thing was, i had the wonkered display on so couldn't tell if i was zero'd or not. Appearantly i wasn't.

Riding home with the fresh brilliant display on the replacement unit i noticed.
shit. so i went through what i remembered the sequence was for zeroing out the torque. Well. This morning i realized i was wrong.

So what? Well. It added to some counter-productive stress. I was late. I didn't get to the house until 5:25. Granted it is only about 14 miles from my house to the TT course. But it took a few minutes to turn around and not to mention i was busting ass trying to get home, the headwind didnot help. Blowing straight up the bay. Should help heading north.

Top it off, it was warm. I had two bottles with me... 28oz each iirc, should be okay, right? Nope. 3 hours and 11 minutes of riding in 80+ degree heat at 75%-100% of max demands more water than that. I tried conserving a bit on the way there. knowing i'd need some for the ride home. I shouldn't have bothered. I might have had a decent TT if i had consumed the water at the start and just bought water after the TT. Not to mention i was completely and totally cooked when i got there. Pretty much TT'd all the way there at 20-22 mph figuring i'd be one of the last to get there. Well i wasn't. But i managed to leave my legs along the road. The whole lack of knowing how off the display was bothered me and so i kinda ignored it and was pissed and just nuked the ride. I don't have reliable torque or power data for the TT. but my average was 37 km/h.

Looking at the recording now my peak Heart rate was lower than the other two TTs. Both of which i pegged it and had a higher average.

I also did something stupid. I sucked a powergel down. Last time riding home my sugar levels felt way low... i figured i'll suck one down to help balance the loss and give something in there to fuel.

I kinda forgot that ya need more water to process that sugar. Bad news.

I also couldn't stay in the tuck the whole time.

all around... totally messed up...

I was later than i wanted, i had a hard day the day before, i had a very fast ride in the morning of, i was WAY stressed at being late, over extended by racing home then riding all the way back to the start ITT style. Dehydrated and just off. Oh, to add to the stress? It goes along the lines again of DON'T work on the bike when ya distracted by the girls. Getting the stuff on the bike i had to stop twice to rush the little one to the potty. She's starting to wear big girl pants and well, we don't want any accidents and mommy was out running so... that left me... What did i forget this time? I got the 12 tooth put on all messed up. I fixed it this morning before everyone got up.

I was 6 pounds lighter this morning than yesterday morning if that gives ya any indication of my level dehydration. To top it all off? I couldn't sleep. Then when i was asleep i was dreaming about the little one who was going to fall off the stairs and i had to spring with every once of will in the dream to catch her... then she made some noise in her room and before i could stop myself i was in her room and ... that's all she wrote - she wanted to be in daddy's bed... so the rest of the night was spent getting kicked and headbutted (tried to move her but she wouldn't have ANY of that)...

Stress.

I do have a silver lining. I'm really learning what it takes to get ME to have a good race. And what will destroy my performance. Heck i even entertained just riding past the TT last night.

I did get in a 4+ hour day on the bike yesterday. All at a pretty high intensity. My legs were destroyed this morning. I would have driven but there are 700 something miles on the one tank of fuel and well that was enough to get me back on the bike this morning.

But between finally remembering how to freaking re-zero the torque (yeah, i dunno why i keep forgetting - pretty simple) realizing that even with my crappy time, my crappy TT there is a heck of a lot of good to come out of it.

I'm also wondering if the Paramount is a better TT machine. At least for TTs that don't go up. But i'm still holding out that it wasn't the bike and it was me, me and my 'issues'...

Heck looking at Dr. Falsetti's interview in RBA (this months) he is saying ya need 3-4 bottles per hour for a 3 hour ride. Even using a 16 oz bottle i was so underhydrated by his rational - no wonder i was wicked effed up. Heck if i look over at the Gatorade fluid loss calc It shows for only 90 minutes at 75% intensity in 85 degree heat i need 11oz (+/-2) every 15 minutes. HAHAHAHAHA

All signs point to the confirmation: HYDRATION IS CRITICAL...

And yeah - fluid bonk sucks.

Solobreak's got a great editorial. Some good meat to chew on today. If ya made it this far - i appologize for my wallowing in my moment of being a moronic idiot, make it up to yourself and go read something good. Like FRAZZ.

peace
g

Can being skinny catch on?

Obesity can spread from person to person, much like a virus, researchers are reporting today. When one person gains weight, close friends tend to gain weight, too.

Check out the accompanying picture in this other article... i would guess that the design limits on that chair are a little be exceeded... although if you look closely it is one of the beefiest folding chairs you'll encounter... maybe that person is in no danger... at least no danger of collapsing that chair.

Is skinny contagious? Probably not. But at least worth thinking about. Less aggravating and more introspectively productive than getting worked up about neglectful users who CAN'T FOLLOW SIMPLE FREAKING PRINTED DIRECTIONS...

PEZ? In the Google News Ticker? COOOOOOOL someone should point it out to them... unless it happens all the time... that or Google's on to me and has a damn clever profile of what i want to see.


Back over to the health side of things.

Allergy Free Peanuts? Is Peanut's favorite food going to be safe again?

What was curious, last night no mention of the TdF, drugs in sport or what not on the news... but they saw fit to spend five minutes dealing with allergy free peanut possibility.

"The farmer can go on and produce whatever they produce. … We remove the allergen through processing rather than breeding of the peanut itself," explained Mohammed Ahmedna, who works on the study.

Mo Ahm needs some coaching next time the national news comes to interview. The few seconds i saw of him was NOT impressive. Come on, are all the well spoken, lucid researchers at big Ivy Schools?

I'd wager that the rise in peanut allergies has more to do with increasingly processed foods.

Speaking of processing foods, HFCS comes to mind.
quick google news search brings a few things up. There's this:

Newswise — High fructose corn syrup (HFCS) has been singled out as having special properties that make Americans fatter than sugar and other energy sources with identical calorie contents. But an analysis by the University of Maryland Center for Food, Nutrition, and Agriculture Policy (CFNAP), now appearing online in Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition, says there isn’t enough research to conclude that high fructose corn syrup contributes to weight gain any more than any other energy source, such as sucrose (sugar.)
The CFNAP study team, led by Richard Forshee, Ph.D., recommends that more research be conducted on HFCS, including whether HFCS is metabolized differently than sucrose. They also recommend updating the USDA food composition and nutrient databases to reflect recent research.

For their study, the team used a literature search and developed argument diagrams to visualize the hypotheses being proposed for the role of HFCS (not fructose) in contributing uniquely to weight gain. They also conducted original research to assess the potential impact of regular carbonated soft drinks on body mass index, using data from the longitudinal studies and the food availability reports available in the peer-reviewed literature.

HFCS Targeted
High fructose corn syrup has been targeted as a special suspect in causing obesity, in part because of timing. “All of us are very concerned about the pronounced increase in the obesity rate in the United States over the past few decades, and researchers are searching for ways to explain it,” said Forshee. “Some have suggested that high-fructose corn syrup may be the culprit because its use in food and beverages has expanded during roughly the same time period as the increase in obesity rates. This kind of analysis—comparing two trends over time—is called an ecological analysis, and it is widely recognized that an ecological analysis is weak and can be very misleading.

“Many other trends, from smoking rates to two-income households to computer use, have also been roughly coincident with the rise in obesity, and ecological analysis cannot determine which of the trends are truly associated with the obesity rate,” said Forshee. “We dug deeper to examine more robust forms of analysis.”

What is HFCS?
In sorting out the impact of high fructose corn syrup on obesity, the study says, it’s important to understand the differences in sweeteners – what is actually HFCS and what is not?

According to Maureen Storey, Ph.D., CFNAP director and a member of the study team, there are three types of HFCS products (HFCS-55, HFCS-42, and HFCS-90), but only HFCS-55 and HFCS-42 are commonly used as sweeteners. HFCS-90 is mainly used in the production of HFCS-55, but is seldom directly added to foods and beverages. The composition of HFCS-55 (55% fructose and 42% glucose) is very similar to that of sucrose (50% fructose and 50% glucose). HFCS-42 (42% fructose and 53% glucose) actually contains less fructose than sucrose does.

HFCS-55 is used mainly in beverages, such as carbonated and non-carbonated soft drinks; HFCS-42 is used to sweeten a wide variety of foods.

Recommendations
The team makes these recommendations:
• Fill gaps in the research, including gathering data on special vulnerabilities of sub-populations that may be predisposed to obesity and better measures of energy expenditure and its importance to weight control.
• Update the USDA food composition and nutrient databases. Says Storey, “Without this critical information, nutrition and toxicological research will be flawed by out-of-date data. Fructose levels in food products and actual fructose consumption is unknown. In addition, there are no chemical methods that can distinguish naturally-occurring dietary fructose from fructose added by manufacturers either as sucrose or HFCS.”
• Increase access to federally funded longitudinal datasets so researchers can replicate each other’s findings.
Funding
The study was funded by Tate and Lyle, with an unrestricted grant to hold the workshop, which was the only obligation. Tate and Lyle did not participate in the workshop, nor did the corporation have any input into the literature search, development of the argument diagrams, design of the original research conducted by CFNAP, or the decision to publish.

link here

And a interesting story that is out of a UofW study has a nice little gem of a quote:

Sucrose also contains both glucose and fructose, bound together in a 1-to-1 ratio. However, the researchers found that for the sucrose in the beverages tested in this study, the bond between fructose and glucose is broken. Because of this, the authors suggest that the body does not readily discriminate between beverages sweetened with sucrose and those sweetened with HFCS 42 or 55.

Broken down in the soda... Hmmm now what happens if we break it down in the gut?

just thinking... does it have a different affect on the uptake pathway? I'd still wager there's something going on with the insulin pathway and whatnot that is probably tied into the whole HFCS making people fat.

But then maybe it is just a parallel (what's that called again?) cause. Indirect? Unrelated? Whatever. Maybe it is just the uber processing of our food now?

Quick skimming of Google's Blog search for HFCS finds this decently and somewhat seemingly quite scientifically sound 'review' of some ways it is bad for you. I wonder if this really is the answer:

Fructose requires a different pathway for metabolism than other carbohydrates because it basically skips glycolysis (normal carbohydrate metabolism). Because of this, fructose serves as an unregulated source of something called acetyl-CoA, the starting material for fatty-acid synthesis. This, coupled with unstimulated leptin levels is setting you up for a big, fat disaster! It’s like opening the flood gates of fat deposition.

If it was that simple i think someone would have found out by now. But then maybe the corn producers are suppressing the research the way big drug companies suppress non-drug treatments.

Further looking finds a few more blogs and then this "article" referenced. It is a good read there - as with all of them (and mine) should be taken with a heaping pile of salt. Biases and intent should be identified as well (what are they selling, saying, believing, wanting you to do) in reading ANYTHING.

But this excerpt is good:

"The medical profession thinks fructose is better for diabetics than sugar," says Dr. Field, "but every cell in the body can metabolize glucose. However, all fructose must be metabolized in the liver. The livers of the rats on the high fructose diet looked like the livers of alcoholics, plugged with fat and cirrhotic."

Nice. Fructose is hard core messing with your liver! NICE... So then what? Maltose? Trehalose? Both glucose glucose disaccarides (as opposed to sucrose). Question is - for most people which enzyme is more prevalent? Maltase or Trehalase? (I'm pretty sure it is the former).

Anyway - so what about dextrose? Oh everyone should know that Dextrose is the code word for glucose, right? So in the powdered form of gatorade (non e formula at least) ya got both sucrose and dextrose. Meaning the Fructose/Glucose ratios are prolly twisted way in the favor of glucose when compared to the premixed bottled form that are using HFCS as the sugar...

But then... is Greg Lemond correct? Does our body care when we are hardcore active? Do we care where the raw energy comes from?

I would like to thank a dreadfully late appointment for this time to contemplate sugars and anti-skinny stuff...

you read the bit about the choco milk study being funded by the Dairy Council HERE FIRST

not over here

Okay - i guess the actual publication said it first...

Boonen: My new hero? That or he's the biggest Liar out there.

I tend to think he's on the up and up. Definitely genetically gifted, but that said he was hanging out with the Disco boys for a while.

But reading through Cyclingnews.com's stuff the number of riders saying those dirty folks are ruining it... yet they name only the ones who've been kicked out, tested positive...

why not point the fingers and blow the flipping whistle on the folks still riding?

i know why not, the question posed is more rhetorical than anything else.

Pretty amazing i have to say. Too bad we can't have an exciting stage today. Maybe the break will make it exciting (uh huh, right).

changing gears... spin down the hype...
but not before you check out Big Jonny's OTHER new website:
www.ibelieverasmussen.com/

So anyway. Slapped the wheel covers back on the Klein, put my "aero" bars (yeah the spinach ones) and am planning on hitting the TT tonight! WHOOOOOO. Really really hoping to be able to continue the trend of chopping a few seconds off each time i do it. Last year's steadily increasing times sort of sucked. A lot.

I'm about ready to eat lunch. I think maybe because i had a bowl of granola with fresh blueberries (plain yogurt instead of milk) for breakfast. It got my metabolism jump-started and now it don't wanna burn the fat, the body got lazy. Damn that body.

Now. Ah heck, where was i?

No matter - here's to wishing Jens and David all the luck against their companions in the break! Would be cool and very redeeming to see one of those two kids win today.

g

the title is in homage to those who actually work the old fashioned way to get faster, to make more power, you know, ride you bike, not use performance enhancing junk

Holyshit

I’m sitting here going through power files and Ass munchin is out of the tour?

HOLY CRAP

My new record power files suddenly look kinda funny. Yeah that’s right. I got bigger numbers for the first time in a long time. So I guess time trialing to a doctors appointment for my daughter is what I needed to do to go fast.

How fast?

All the numbers from 1min to 60 min are higher than I’ve recorded yet.
1min – 576
5min – 421
10min – 385
30min – 339
60min – 269

All from nuking it on the way home. Had a nice stretch of ~7 minutes at 420 watts.

Anyway. I can’t believe it. The chicken is cooked.

Gonna have to dig up the NPR link for the story in the morning.
This morning - before opening anything else, i clicked on NPR and it is the top story on NPR.org wow...

Here's the link to the piece from last night

it is going to be interesting to see what has transpired in the world of the 'net overnight.

Figures. I leave early to get my daughter to a Dr appointment and something BIG happens.

wow...

Had a killer ride in this morning too. Made it to daycare in record time. Should have some decent power numbers to back it up too.

peace,
G

Zap's column is pretty crazy. First shooting from the hip call i got is "press charges for impersonating an officer"

Messed messed up.

But it was well written. I like that. I ain't a copy editor so i don't really feel in position to say it is properly written, but it was a good read.

Flipping a few pages later they've got a BMC Team Astana bike there. I wonder how the schmucks who bought one with that paint scheme feel now. Maybe they still feel like Vino is wrongly accused and that there really was too much blood in his thighs.

It is pretty amusing and cool at the same time to show a Surly Pacer on the same pages as a Lightspeed Archon, Parlee TT... One thing is pretty painfully obvious: which "aero" bike is designed for a TT and which is designed for the bike leg in a multi-sport event. Look for yourself. I ain't giving away the whole basket of eggs.

I will shamelessly admit to enjoying reading the Inspiration section. Reading the passion people have for all aspects cycling is fantastic. If a 600 mile a year guy can get juiced riding and reads RBA, that's pretty damn cool.

Bob Roll's article about the '86 edition of the hell of the north is way too short. I wanted it to be 10x as long. But then i guess that would make it a book.

I like the not-so-subtle dig at Omerta:

The peloton rolled out slow and easy but quickly got steamrolling as the euro-creeps' drugs began to hit the bloodstream. The drugs in my system were limited to pasta, ham, eggs, cheese and a bowl of nasty French coffee.

Little cool fact that i had forgotten. Tchmil was the last winner of the Paris Roubaix on a Rockshox in 1994. The Storck bike is definately cool. The German version of the Klein, or what the Klein would be now if Gary hadn't sold the company.

I kinda skipped over the 4 unobtanium bikes. Or in other words the bikes that you'd most want to get beat by in a claims race.

The A is for Aero is probably a very worth while read for newbies to the sport. pretty good explanations tucked in there.

There ya go. There's a bit more in there. But that covers about all i'll read. The reviews of new bikes like the C-dale and the Madone create no interest for me. I can't afford them, won't be buying, i suppose i could read them incase someone asked me about them, but then, that ain't likely to happen.

Nice job Zap. At least you don't go off talking about how Basso is going to win the tour just to have Basso be yanked from the team the day the rag hits the mail box. Heck i suppose Zap could have had an interview with Vino about how clean everything is now and how no one is doping. That would have been good timing.

Is it worth the $5 on the newstand? Yeah, it is, if you are the kinda person who will be buying a $5-$10k bike. $5 is worth it. Good value. Better to spend the money on this than $5 at starbucks.

yeah it ain't fourbucks no more. They are raising prices from what i hear, and fivebucks doesn't have the same ring as fourbucks.... (yeah i know it is only a $0.09 increase for the most part... no matter)

There ya have it. Solo can leave his copy in plastic now.

We'll see about getting the rest of the RBA review for those who won't take the plastic off your copy, maybe later.

My take on this circulating quote:

Vinokourov did manage a joke about his situation. "I heard that I made a transfusion with my father's blood," Vinokourov said. "That's absurd, I can tell you that with his blood, I would have tested positive for vodka."

No kidding. Your dad is drinking because you are a cheating lying no good sack of shit void of all morals and ethics and he is ashamed.

Your daddy drinks because of you Vino.

Ya got the Disco boys who signed a doper in Basso. Wait. He was clean, no he wasn't, he said he was, then he maybe said he wasn't. And So... Contador?

Sheesh. Pretty ripe pile o crap. Sort of smells like the Cat 4 pack did on the CR at WMSR. Dogshit. Someone musta ridden through some or crapped their pants or i dunno but it was pretty rank. Or maybe it was just me.

Solo's gone an initiated round 2 of the Blogger Cross competition. Looks like Mt Snow is on the agenda. I'd say put the Mt A TT on there as the road race if we need to stick with the season. Unless CTodd's too chicken to race me there. He don't even need his TT bike for that race.

I recall now an idea that i wanted to flush out. Yin and Yang. The fight with good and evil and how the heck i can get so self contradictory (that whole multi-sport gone wrong thing).

for now, i'll just stick with drinking some more coffee, water and preppin the vocal cords for a couple hours of non-stop talking.

Whoooo.

Oh, and have they canceled the tour yet?
G

So, since Petacchi has been cleared, can Prudhome allow him to join in the race for the last few stages? Starting on Thursday of course. Wouldn't want Alesandro to start on the day he couldn't possibly finish.

Can we give him a provisional bonus green points... say 5 points less than who ever is in green? (no i don't know and am not going to check, i'd guess boonen but that'd only be a wag)...

I went back to look at the VNews page and WTF, it wasn't there (at least not on the front page - could be the lack of coffee megA). Had to head back to one of the blogs that linked it already.

Amazing. But then, as others point out, is anyone really clean and is doping really cheating? I think it is. People say "is it really that big of a deal?" yeah i think so.

Who was the last guy to win cleanly in the Tour? I would like to believe Lemond. Based on the Kimmage interview and the circumstantial evidence, he just might have been. Does it matter?

I don't know.

Hell i'm a mechanic - lemme fix a bike or two. Lets focus on the technical stuff.

Lets focus on why the hell you have to race on 808s to be competitive in the Masters field. Lets talk about the proper use of lets and the appropriate punctuation.

I had a line of gewilli mental ramblings that were brought on by reading Zap's new magazine. In brief basically my line of thinking is this: Frame don't matter if it fits and is reasonably light, which pretty much is easy to meet with most aluminum frames on the market now. Pick Orbea, Ridley, whatever. The frame no make a difference anymore.

10 years ago the frame made alot of difference (relative to now, yes people were able to over come differences w/o problem, but there WAS significant differences in frames then).

Now. Frames no matter. It is the wheels. Solobreaks poetic accounting of the rider who showed up at Wells this summer with the old wire spoke box section wheels. Imagine the legs he would have ripped off riding with a set of 808s or even 404s or the Reynolds D46s. I dunno pick a wheelset...

Sure, GeWilli does a TT using an 808 front wheel, tries to race using a 32 spoked Open 4CD rim up front and seems to notice a difference. Yeah. I noticed a difference. And it made me think. Solo's comment about setting wheel limits is damn good IMHO.

We have frame limits. Heck can't we have wheel limits? Make it illegal to race with rims deeper than 25mm. Let the Multi-sport/triathletes (so i can't spell it) ride the 40-50-60mm deep rims. make them legal for TTs only maybe. Make some concessions to the wheel makers. But keep the sport open to those who can't afford to drop $1600 on wheels, and then another $400 when some squirrel sticks a skewer into their wheel...

Put the focus back on the rider...

Right?

Is there a reason why the fields on the road are older and older? Maybe $$$. MTB is awesome, ya can get freaking torched by some dude riding a 25 pound singlespeed and it has nothing to do with the bike and everything to do with the rider's skills.

Wheel limits set would go a long way to taking the fiscal handicap out of the sport and open it up to many more people. Or give people without deep pockets a fighting chance. That said. Don't waste your cash buying frames at this point. Money is in wheels... wheels...

that and Salbutamol... medical exemption or not... i could probably convince a doctor i get exercise induced asthma...

-g

I believe Vino...

Big Jonny, you are a GD GENIUS!!!

I'm so close to tears from laughing so hard...

i needed that!

The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles

My initial reaction was of hysterical amusement...

now...

one minute later...

i'm pissed...

saddened...

and generally morose...

fuckin hell... I guess that little fucking piece of paper they all signed was pretty, um, compelling...

I gotta go back to Dawn's article for the junk mag Vnews about dopers. The mental illness psychosis is far too accurate to ignore. No other way to explain.

No rational person would act that way. Drug users and Drug abusers (leave out performance enhancing for a minute) have one focus: the next fix.

cyclists doing performance stuff ain't any different, justifying suspension of all moral, ethical, logical believes in the quest for one more win... never believing that they would get caught.

Hell Lance didn't get caught, why should anyone else get caught? No reason Vino should get caught, he's got the same doctor - i mean trainer.

I hope Contator and Levi and Popy pluck that dirty asschicken clean tomorrow. But then what does that say to the sport? Not a whole hell of a lot i'm afraid.

I could use a beer with this chili i'm eating for lunch. Maybe a whole freaking case or something.

Damn...

AHahahahahah

"Sure, Vino's performance was just ups and downs!" THey are NORMAL.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAH

cyclingnews

Eurosport

Cosmo's comments were either based on insider information or eerily foreshadowing...

Um...

are these guys really that fahkin stupid?

answer is appearantly YES

Big Jonny's got it right...

dagger through the heart....

Pass the Bushmills

so i got to noticing some serious drops in the kJ expended commuting the week or two before WMSR. not like 10-50 low like 200-300 low...

made me think abit... i've read in a few places that the amount of work done is the same to get you and the bike from point A to point B assuming the same conditions and all that. meaning if you push it hard you'll have higher work/time numbers but the same energy expended as if you lolly gag and soft pedal and take a freaking coon's age to get there.

But.

that ain't anywhere near right. more work = more energy. maybe if ya look at a statistically insignificant distance like 2-3 miles... but 10-20 and beyond seems rather to be quite telling of the difference. At least it seems that way for me. And all those folks out on the path ticking over 30-40 rpm probably ain't workin at all...

Just some obvious observations that seem to contradict "wisdom" that's out there.

Zap's rag showed up in the mail yesterday. I honestly still dunno what to think about it. There's good stuff, but there's "multi-sport" crap in there. COME ON! Call it the Tri-dork section. Yeah, Tri-folks are all that sort of stuff, but i still subscribe to the assumption that a tri is just someone who sucks too much at cycling to be competitive against cyclists, sucks too much at running to be competitive against runners and sucks too much at swimming to beat real swimmers.

But then calling it 'mulit-sport' in an obvious roadie magazine, seems rather to be glossing it over and a not quite blatent attempt to cash in on the wallets of the Tri-dorks. Stranglife's got a nice little write up, go give it a read.

I will say i know plenty of great folks who are tri-dorks, but more often than not Strangelife's stuff is about bang the eff on. But hey. We can get along right?

Buy Local.

As in Shop at the Market at Cutler Mills.
Why?
Grass Fed Beef at prices lower than wholepaycheck AND lower than Shaws. Yeah. You can get grass fed beef cheaper than the hormone and grain fed crap at Shaws.

The cheese selection is impressive. The Avocados are ALWAYS $1.49 each. Coffee is only $9/pound and a couple choices are that fair trade crap. The Deli section has applegate and boar's head stuff, all teh best quality you can find. They've got Seven Stars breads. They've got a great selection of basic foods that will keep ya nice and healthy. Cancer free hotdogs (nitrate free) and bacon (and it is the damn finest bacon you'll ever eat).

Tell your friend, your neighbor, stop in and make it a routine. They stock as much local items and produce as they can get their hands on. It is locally owned. And all that stuff.

Make a difference in the community.

Ya may not be able to do anything about Ass'munchin the Chicken being in Yellow in "Lay Tour" but ya can make a difference supporting clean healthy lifestyles (mostly your own) locally.

Now like CTodd says, get to work, slacker...
g

than going to sort out getting changed to ride home only to find the shorts are cold and still soaking wet? and then having to put a cold wet clammy shammy on?

that discovery has me really NOT wanting to get changed and headed out of here... Oh well, i guess it would have been wet pretty quickly out there in the rain anyway... just sucks to start off with it cold and wet...

nah - GeWilli was in Seattle first trying to windsurf then selling that mess of crap i'd accumulated for that sport and buying a Mt Bike - he wasn't in the lofty network that made up the BRC junior gang.

But. I went to college, got recruited to be the team mechanic and then sophomore year i got roped into a 3 year team as president of the Collegiate Team. The guy who got me into that mess was a pretty decent sprinter. Everyone out here who was connected back then seems to know this guy.

And running into folks that know him are always a learning experience. Ya see there is this one guy, a blogger and a Cat 3 guy outa the boston area, he drives a GTI (new one) and races for a team sponsored by a bike company that most of the riders can't afford to race on (or so it seems). At the WMSR he was chatting with someone else saying something along the lines of blah blah blah BRC junior days blah blah blah... me, knowing exactly ONE person really well who was there, asks "do you know G. S.?"

The answer was yeah of course! How do you know him? And then there was the "I'll pass along greetings" or what ever is agreed upon. So my "does this name ring a bell" email gets a bit of a gem of a response.

An anecdote that those from back then might remember and know exactly who i'm talking about.

This is the quote from the email:

We had a lot of fun razzing him after he got beat in a sprint by a young Jessica Greico one spring race - you know, the whole getting-beat-by-a-girl thing.

He did mitigate/explain it by saying:

So what she became like one of the fastest women America's put forth on the crit and track circuit

but as a junior, as a kid who's strong and fast... to get beat by a girl? teenage years can be rough.

So speaking of rough, i started giving CTodd a bit of a hard time with his 7th place finish in the age group in sport class at MTB Nats. Pointing out that that category is one subdivided craziness and being 7th in a 5 year age group is still 7th place. So really not too bad. The rough part came with a damn gauntlet. Seems he's challenged me to race him at Mt Snow on the 16th of september... happens to be the same day as the Bob Beal race... Now last years attempt at Bob Beal was not terribly successful. And while it is only 45-60 minutes away, it is an all day kinda thing and a bit humbling lining up with the Masters who are pretty GD fast around here (I'm not if ya hadn't picked up on that yet). And so, i started thinking more about this whole Mt Bike race thing...

however...

if i bag bob beal i could do a Cross race instead... which, is cross and cross is better than any other form of cyclesport hands down by far... and that cross race is a lot closer.. okay only about 50 miles closer... but still... the difference between 2+ hours and 3+ hours is pretty solid... But what it has done is open the possibility of not doing Bob Beal. Got me thinking, and off that delusional horse that has me thinking i can go fast on the road... well i dunno, i think to go fast i would actually have to start racing more than a handful of times on the road a year. Actually put together something. But, why bother if my focus is cross? Lots of reasons but anyway...

Reading Aki's recounting of the Tour of Michigan brings back floods of memories. Go give em a read. I'm not ready to start the pool on when he runs out of content, but in the mean time until he does, that's a great spot to go read about cycling.

I dunno if MIF will get his wish granted anytime soon, but Tomorrow is tuesday and that means CTodd will have new content up. At least that's what he said at some point, new stuff every tuesday, we'll see if he holds true to that today.

Looks like it still might be a wet ride home... and me with no fenders... ya'd think i could keep all the bikes going at the same time? no? at least 2/3 (road bikes). Not sure i can get the trailer to work with the ritchey drop outs on the Cross bike... but i'm thinking thats the next project (for the bike room)...

Yall have a safe ride home, if ya driving home, shame on you ;-)
g

Didn't get to race in it on Thursday but i did get to ride in it this morning.

Didn't get the P-mount back in action so i just hitched the trailer up to the QP.

Didn't get over to Attleboro, wound up stopping at the Market for Lunch and then heading over to the Westport Fair and 4H show. Saw some gals walking some cows around, saw tractor barrel races (think tractor rolling a barrel down a dirt drag strip).

Not feeling super verbose this morning. Watched my second bit of TV coverage of the Tour. And all i can say is "How the hell did chicken pull that out?" crazy...

a climber TT'n like that? Uh huh. Yeah, i believe it *rolleyes*

No was is that dude clean. I refuse to believe he's clean. NO matter if he isn't racing on the juice, using the juice at anypoint to get stronger/faster is enough... It is enough to tarnish my enthusiasm for the race all over again. Spectacle or not, it has lost that bit of magic.

Tokeneke is coming up this weekend. I loved that course when UConn used it for a RR, i'd love to go race it for the hell of it on sunday, but can't. So someone get out there, race it and get a nice write up about it... eh?

Oh, one bright spot in the CBS tour coverage: the 15 second Cervelo spots. Nice to see a bike company OTHER than Trek pimping products, AND it is nice to see a BIKE company actually stepping up and paying for ad time.

Working Mans Stage Race Part 3 from gewilli and Vimeo.

There ya have it...

I'd edit them all into one...

but my camera only does *.mov files and my computer is a windoze and "movie maker" don't do mov files...

so they strung out all indy style...

speaking of indy... The PBS station was running a film from the Independent Lens series. "The cats of Mirikitani".

It is an intense painful and critical look at many aspects of US culture. Subject matter is compelling. I have neither the same emotional subject matter, nor the time/equipment to even attempt something on that scale although for some reason honestly the art form has a powerful draw for me. Maybe some day... some day... It probably would just mean getting a Mac and plugging in our old digi vid camera (it ain't HD but it works, with light, not so good low light)... i suppose a pc would work too... Would be fun to make little films with my oldest, she has expressed interest and i think she'd have a blast making little films... Thoughts... many thoughts... words cluttering up this page... words...

In closing about the WMSR, i can't wait for next year...
G

if the videos don't load - just click on the link to see it play at Vimeo
Act 1



Working Man Stage Race Part 2 from gewilli and Vimeo.

Act 2



Working Mans Stage Race Part 2b from gewilli and Vimeo.

Act 3



Working Mans Stage Race Part 2c from gewilli and Vimeo.

Working Man Stage Race Part 1 from gewilli and Vimeo.

Then...

well then all hell broke loose and traffic basically came to a stop... Until the 95/128 split on the north side

yeah - this morning ouch. Must be all the driving. ~450 miles yesterday to make roughly 900 miles driven since Tuesday afternoon. Good thing the Golf got close to 50 mpg running that B20 stuff. So at least 20% of my fuel was domestic and renewable and all that. Driving it reinforced exactly how much work the thing needs, and well gotta put a parts order in and get it all fixed up. Switch from bike mechanic to car mechanic.

Quick note about wed race. I was bummed. I made a wicked stupidassrookielike mistake in the race. Like i said i fell into the hurt locker and couldn't climb back out. Retard. Part of me didn't want to follow behind and stay in the pack so i turned into the yellow line marshal in a way... towards the front. And then retardedly moved up when i should have just moved back. The drive up and the anxiety took a big bit of steam out of me. I just was not mentally prepared for the traffic. And that didn't give me any time to mentally prepare for the race, much less do more than change get the bike out before the meeting and then we started the race. But. I finished. I doubt i would have broken the top 15 anyway if i had raced any smarter which i needed to keep in mind. I did NOT crash, i didn't flat. I didn't run out of water or fluid. The legs just went a bit ouch too early and i didn't recover fast enough and really didn't recover much at all...

But when i checked in yesterday morning and saw the GC. And noticed i was sitting in 17th. I immediately felt much better. Mentally the switch turned on and i was positive.

Editorial note: my grandfather's saying wasn't "Finish what you started"... the wonderful time spent with my mother driving out to Tanglewood yesterday morning clarified it. He would say FWUT (pronounced f-whut). "Finish What You Undertake!"

I got back home after the morning check and loaded the bike with my mother's bags and planned for a long day in the seat. Car seat that is. And what a long day it was.

Part of me really wanted to be a spectator. To see if Cathy, Rebecca, Ivy, or Samatha would take the final jersey. I was really looking forward to watching them and the 5s and then giving it a go myself. The traffic in the rain didn't bother me on the way up. The way home took the same amount of time as it took me to get to the road race and i was mellow and calm. Of course i had to stop at the NH liquor store to pick up a bottle of Bushmills (on sale) to not have the drive up there be a total loss. When i got to the track. And parked and put on my ancient fashion don't seattle sombrero and my beat up Sugoi jacket and walked over to the track, and saw not one bike. Only a mass of huddled people under a tent in the infield at 5:25 i guessed it was canceled.

We waited around a bit for the official announcement but it was confirmed. GC standings final. Race canceled. There was tons of water POURING into the track at all the corners. The infield was a couple inches deep with water. And, racing there might have been fun but it would most certainly been very sketchy and dangerous. I had a thought of doing a NASCAR style qualifying event and settle points that way. Ya know one lap to get up to speed, hit the timing mark at full tilt and do a lap. Get points based on time and showing up. But then, well that ain't exactly easy to implement at the last minute, not even sure ya can do that under the "rules" (make such drastic changes). That or just held a neutralized lap or two for those who showed up to give them the credit for driving up.

Ah well. it was all good.

I'll work on getting the videos up for yalls entertainment. Yeah they just GeWilli one take wonders. I might even post the ones with crappy audio.

I didn't even ride in to work today. Dropping the Rolf wheel out of the rotation has me down a front and the croll has no pedals on, the paramount has no front wheel and a cross wheel on back (no cassette) and yeah, it ain't a pretty scene. With the roads as wet as they were this morning i didn't want to put the race blades on the Klein and well. it was just easier to drive in. Gonna have to decide what to do with the Rolf. I seriously was the only one in the whole Cat4 field that was riding a traditional front wheel. How crazy has this sport become?

As i was leaving the track in the rain i remembered someone who's race was canceled due to weather. And well i felt fortunate only to be out 250 miles of driving and a chance to race on a track, not $150 and a chance to race up Mt Wash. So all in all, i was remarkably positive, got home before the girls went to bed. All in all good.

Next year. got a mark set for next year!

till later,
G

Video coming. Pre and Post race.

Somewhere in the middle the wheels fell off...

Left a bit late. Sokay. I should still be able to get there and have about 60-75 minutes to prep for the race.

Mistake. Big one. Traffic was aweful. Top it off i managed to barely stay in control except i didn't. Had an anxiety attack. First one since, well 2004 i think. Like full on flushed sweating blood pressure cranking. not good.

But i got there in time to sign in at 5:25. Plenty of time for a 6pm start. Sort of. No warm up. no pre-race mental prep. no game plan. also that whole lack of sleep tuesday night was hurting me a bit.

I played yellow line jockey for the first 1/2 of a lap. As we started heading down the hill before the left hand turn to the base of the KOM climb i wanted to move up a bit, see what was going on. CCB had a decent train with MRC hanging up there too. And somehow. Like the first lap at Bob Beal, this retard finds himself at the front. Great. Well here and then i decided to open and peak into the hurt locker.

And i fell in. got KOM, except they don't award points for KOM on the first lap. i knew that but well... i'm an idiot. So i drilled it heading down hill. not drilling it drilling it but got some good speed leading down the hill. wanted to see i guess if i could gap anyone without really trying. Nope.

roll around let everyone roll through, sit in on the back... got just ever so gapped on the first real riser on lap 2... couldn't quite find the juice to close the gap. Stayed pretty close until the right turn and at that point the gap grew and well that's all she wrote.

I ain't so good a road racer. Time to go back to mt biking. That or i gotta start doing more of em so i make enough mistakes to actually learn. I was thinking "its the 4s i should stay towards the front" yeah well i ain't that strong or smart enough to do that yet.

GeWilli ain't no road racer. Bring on cross season.

So this means i may not even bother signing in and take the DNF for the stage race.

I didn't crash. I suffered. I was the only one in the field with a traditional 32 spoke front wheel. Seriously. The only one.

This morning i took a peak at what was making noise in my drive train last night. Fucking chainring bolt had worked loose to the point it removed a bit of paint and metal from the frame. Fuzuk. Oh well. at least the rings didn't fall off.

I did sleep well last night, not feeling too crappy but i'm still wiped out and thinking the 4+ hours to get to the race tonight on TOP of driving out to Lenox, MA (Tanglewood) would flat out be foolish. I was crazy enough to attempt to do the race. I'll have the video content *groan* up here tomorrow i think.

Till then. Zzzzzz... but checking the results. I am 17th. Just finishing the points race would be a victory for me. Might be worth the mental side of doing it.

'Cause my grandfather always said "Finish What you start!"

maybe he's right.
G

So... Just read Solobreak's Stage 2 account. Potential cancel don't make the choice any better, tips the scales a bit, no?

And i think i slept better with help from the 2 aleve and 1 smuttynose lager (Noreast club sponsor) and 1 Magic Hat Fat Angel.

looking at the maps, getting there tonight would mean driving close to 450 miles today. I've driven over 475 miles since leaving for the race on tuesday. Now, if they could just make a car that would work for bike racers. Ya know one where i could drive with my feet up and legs relaxed!

So, #357 managed to ride a time of 15:03, securing 70 points and 13th place, 55 seconds off the winning time.

Felt great. i didn't win but i felt like i left it all out there. it wasn't a perfect ride of the course, i probably lost a touch of time on the one hill, and there were spots where i dropped the power a bit low, and i think i lost a few seconds with a car that passed me coming into the final turn and then sort of stopped almost but cleared out of the way at the last second. w/o the car i probably would have hit the final turn wider and with more speed.

But all that aside, i passed the finish line with the tank pretty much spent. I was hoping for a higher avg speed. but i guess i have to be happy with what i got. Power was 310 watts average. Somewhat peaky and a few too many dips. That average includes the zeros tho and there were a few sections where i was not pedaling (setting up for turns and what not). So taking out all the zeros (but leaving anything other than zero) my wattage wound up at 334 watts.

And i'm very happy with that. Yeah call me a watt whore. whatever... In a TT i can't see not using the wattage. BUT i have a long ways to go before i will be really able to maximize the display and all that. However, each TT using it i've gotten much better. Gimme a year or two and maybe a real TT bike with REAL TT bars and i'll have it down.

I was in the hurt locker the whole race. And that was a good thing. HR? Probably dipped a second as i worked on full breaths at an attempt at hyperventilating going into the right hander before the hill. Took that moment of down hill leading to the turn to not touch the brakes and use it as a breather. But other than that the heart was maxed. No need to effin have an effin HR working for a TT. "Um i go by HR" yeah well, HR sucks for TT efforts. Damn shit is all about Power. My HR was pegged at 178-182 and power was moving up and down... And that's a good thing.

Another good thing. The $1200 wheel i borrowed is intact. Phew. Woulda really sucked if this happened to me:


Didn't sleep well last night. not sure why, well i know why. Body still wound up...
A little tired, no worse for the wear, legs are sore but not completely knackered. I think the post race nutrition did what it was supposed to do.

Ya know, this bike racing thing? It is pretty G.D. fun!

See some of yall tonight.

And props go to JB for kicking ass even with a wrong turn. Sure, he didn't exactly win his 2/3 race but he did go off course and nearly beat me. That's saying something. Esp coming off puking his guts out this weekend. edit - he wasn't puking, it was the other end

More Props and what not go to Cathy. She kicked some ass, narrowly beating Rebecca (the bike racing supermodel). Now, i'm hoping rebecca taped up the valve stem hole on her rear wheel, but i'd wager if she'd been on a real TT rig with a decreased frontal area, she might have won. But that does NOT take anything away from Cathy's win. WTG. Should be a great fight for the overall! Rumor has it that CTodd is gonna drive around infront of the woman tonight. Here's to hoping he gets some great footage of the impending action!

And yeah, its WMSR so us WM have to get to W

peace
G

reading the Cycling news live feed... i'm juiced about the tour again.

But then, i get all geeked about the mountain stages anyway... man
15:53 CEST
There are 15 riders in the yellow jersey group. Sastre is also there. Behind, Maxim Iglinskiy is with Vinokourov. Karpets is also there.

15:53 CEST
Valverde goes again!

15:54 CEST
Mercado has blown. Mayo brought the others up to Valverde. Moreau is getting dropped.

15:55 CEST
Menchov is goooone...

The Valverde/Rasmussen group has eased slightly and Moreau has got back on.

15:56 CEST
Evans now hits the front and pushes it. He's looking good. Moreau has been dropped again.

Evans continues to lead, wtih Rasmussen on his wheel. Valverde hits the front again.

15:56 CEST
Rasmussen is stuck to Vavlerde's wheel, then Leipheimer and Mayo.

that's some compelling stuff!
get's ya heart pumping.

Speaking of heart pumping. I did my first running workout just now. run get the package, realize i need to get the package taped, run back, tape, run to Post office, run back to car. Move car. Get lucky with 2 hours spot out front. in 2 hours i'm outa here. Perfect.

Gotta get some new shoes though.

Maybe not run in long pants and a "dress" shirt.

that live telemetry stuff that cyclingnews has is pretty damn cool.

well...

see the real bike racers this afternoon.
-G

Yeah, drove in AGAIN today. But. An email from the bike to work listserver this morning reminded me of my little ride last night. Little in that i wanted to get the HR up, try out the helmet and the new wheel but not dip too much into the tank.

That helmet fits tight enough that it is kinda hard to hear. And, it is hot. BUT 25 minutes of wearing it, no problem. I think if i was to have left it on longer i might have had issues. I tested out a whole mess of bumpy road. arms and bars work pretty well over them. And, what can i say. What a freaking difference that front wheel and helmet together make. It is like having an extra gear. Chasing down assholes driving big black saloons (that's a UK reference for those who are wise with the ways of the world) is pretty easy. If he had stayed w/in 5 mph of the speed limit i would have had him. But no... i only managed to get w/in a 100 yards and then he turned suddenly. I think he didn't want me to follow him anymore. Ya see, i was cruising along at 30 mph taking about 1/4-1/3 of the right lane in a 4 lane street (2 in each with a big median in the middle). Light to zero traffic and this buttmunch driving the saloon decides he wants to see just how close he can get to me, even though there are no cars in the left lane. I guess i wasn't going fast enough for him. it got the adrenaline (anger not fear) going and i nailed it. Holy crap. it is amazing what a difference that stuff makes. Then i later on a different road this one with a 25mph speed limit an old lady decides to make a sketchy pass when i'm going 27 steady... great... i'm on the road not the bike path because i don't wanna do 25-32 on the path (and what-i-think, for the record i have gone 35 mph on the bike path just not for very long and only on a stretch where there were no people and a very long line of sight). So well, that's about it, i bail, head back and cool down a bit on the path. 'course there are jasack asses on path too. Oh well.

Feel very rested which is nice, but probably won't last long. Now, now i can appreciate the difference. Hell the Rolfs are a very noticeable step up from a box section 32 round spoke wheel. This front is like a double step, freaking extension ladder. I'm sure the helmet contributed to it a bit.

Oh and whole the hell is the bikea individual?

BKW is recycling content. I dunno. Can't let that go without a comment. What? Run out of great stories? Tour not exciting or PRO enough? Granted, that was a great article back then. But. Um. The faithful tifosi have read all the stuff there.

New phrase for SI folks (at least for me):"was promoted to customer"

Now yeah this picture factory rat has spent pretty much most of the other forms of employment in the service industry. Serving folks, selling shit, fixing shit, cooking, cleaning... ya know... and, i hadn't heard that one before. Damn fine way to say ya got fired. PC enough for me to believe it came out of the uber hippie liberal land of the Pacific Northwest. And yeah. That's where i growed up. And lemme say something to the folks who is still out there, it ain't as magical as it seems. It is a damn fine place, but it ain't freaking nirvana. Close. 15 years ago? Nah, the californians had messed it up by then. 20 years ago? Now ya talking. It was hot shit back then. Of course people would say it was more blue collar, no microsloth, REI was still a co-op and had only one big store more or less, Nordstroms was still just a Seattle place. Fredrick and Neslon was the place to go to get ya santa picture. Pioneer square kicked ass and 5-10 year old kids could run around all day playing w/o their parents worrying or watching them. The antique sandwich company in Tacoma served the biggest and best warm ham and cheese sandwiches in the world. Then it changed. The californians came up and invaded. Decided to market the goodness and cheapen it, make it profitable to franchise and expand. And now you have FourBux in Paris.

Damn that got a bit funky side tracked.

And as everyone has noticed the CSC team wrist bands that say "hardenthefuckup" really are just a clever vulgar version of Bary Nasty Wicks "Turn down the suck knob"

Now if barry gets that slogan molded into one of them sillycone things i'd be all over it. Make it nice Kona cross orange and that'd be fucking brilliant. That and i think MIF is making a decent move by not allowing comments. Maybe he can shed the potty talk image. He'll never shed the connection between MIF and MILF that'll always keep me cracking up when i type MIF.

Adam's got some new content up.

So does the dreamy JD. (okay, JD isn't exactly my type but hell, he's a great guy)

That and i still can't decide which is worse, skeletor with the mic and the shirt off or the constant barage of solobreak in some various forms of undress *shudder*

And damn, i didn't win. No Polar HRM from PEZ for me. Poopy.

And back on the drinking fancy stuff. Cyclingnews has a nice recovery drink Q&A. Even with references.

It's funny you should mention Endurox. A recent bit of research compared the recovery effects of Endurox, Gatorade and chocolate milk (Chocolate milk as a post-exercise recovery aid, Karp et al, 2006), and guess what? Gatorade and chocolate milk were equivalent and far superior to Endurox in their ability to restore endurance cycling capacity after a draining ride.

Maybe Yogurt boy can get the team sponsored by SF Choco Milk.... but, do they make choco milk... hmmm... if not they should!!!!

Now, remember what i said about disclosure and funding and who's supporting the research?

Would it be of any surprise who funded the study?

This study was supported, in part, by the Dairy and Nutrition Council, Inc.

Sure, it says "in part" but the the other part was probably internal support.

Here is the abstract and a link to the full text if you are curious:

Nine male, endurance-trained cyclists performed an interval workout followed by
4 h of recovery, and a subsequent endurance trial to exhaustion at 70% VO2max,
on three separate days. Immediately following the fi rst exercise bout and 2 h of
recovery, subjects drank isovolumic amounts of chocolate milk, fl uid replacement
drink (FR), or carbohydrate replacement drink (CR), in a single-blind, randomized
design. Carbohydrate content was equivalent for chocolate milk and CR. Time to
exhaustion (TTE), average heart rate (HR), rating of perceived exertion (RPE),
and total work (WT) for the endurance exercise were compared between trials.
TTE and WT were signifi cantly greater for chocolate milk and FR trials compared
to CR trial. The results of this study suggest that chocolate milk is an effective
recovery aid between two exhausting exercise bouts.

yeah the link is from the "milk" news room.

So. There ya go. Kinda depressing actually.

Maybe i can get Kozy Shack to fund a study on the benefits of consuming 22 oz of European Style rice pudding 2-3 hours before a cyclocross race.
*grin*

peace and cross... cyclocross is coming...

G

So i'm all ready to be geeked about the tour and all that. But...

it is a freaking rest day! man talk about BS...

so much for my enthusiasm. it is off resting...

That and well...

Right now... i feeling like a rest day... legs are amped and wondering why the heck they didn't ride in... brain is saying "lets take a nap" alternating with "MORE COFEEE" ... I'm not giving it either...

not much to say - feeling empty from two intense training sessions... they went really well but they are somewhat draining...

maybe if CTodd makes it up to WMSR we can try a Dave Z style interview... "What Game Play"

i'm still laughing about that one... (the dork from VN trying to coax an interview out of DZ...)

go out and practice some cross drills boys and girls...
G

Or alternative title:
Solobreak ain't the only one who looks fat on a bike.

I didn't think i had that much of a gut. Oh well. Had my fearless assistant (oldest) take a few snaps of me so i can see what my position looks like in the TT stuff.

But before i get to those images... couldn't help but take a quick "oh look at that dork" shot...


I think it's too small... but even too small it is way better aero than the giro i got...




i'm not sure that i can get any lower and still pedal with power - much less take a breath

murat should be happy to see the wrist bands... although with the long sleeve skinsuit i doubt they will be as noticeable (they are my padded arm rests), cause the long sleeves are not as lilly white as my arms (which are really pretty tan for 'me')

I think this front wheel i'm borrowing for the TT will help a little too.

I just noticed that the Bikeworks TT numbers are up. 19:43 is my offical time. On the Paramount with a 32 spoke front wheel. No series win with such an abysmal time on that first run. But i think i got a fair bit hidden away ready to go (being fresh and not tired from a whole wheel of riding should 'maybe' make a difference).

But. none of it matters... it is just what the clock says when i get done that matters... and then the roll of the dice for the next two races...

that and i think i need to retire that fugly jersey

I watched the CBS coverage of the Tour on Sunday. It was actually pretty damn cool. And yes, if i had that cable/dish thing i probably would watch every stage. Something about bike racing, as a participant in the sport, there is just a magic draw. Doping or not it is pretty spectacular. That and for the first time in a million years i didn't know what was happening watching the footage. I didn't know who had won the last few stages, no idea who was in yellow. A good friend who has been watching every stages is saying riders are actually looking tired for a change. People are actually suffering already. Something he noticed a little last year but not really much in the past. And there seems not to be a massively dominant team (are we in the no doping era?). Well i dunno maybe Astana blew their early wad already pulling the two ring leaders.

Needless today. I might, just might actually start being less negative towards this big old bike race going on in france.

But, for now, i'm sort of focusing on a small stage race. And with that focus came a bit of bike preparation this weekend. Got the Klein all put together (PT rear with disk cover) Rolf front, spinach bars. Chain all lubed up and all that jazz. Took it for a quick spin and sprint test on Saturday after putting it together. Position felt good, sprinting was amazing, hitting 52kph with a head wind wasn't that much of a challenge. It was work getting to that speed in short order but almost effortless compared to the p-mount it seemed. Putting on the TT tires i blew out my last UL tube. Distractions. Kids can make ya forget to double check the bead seat when pumping em up. First omen about that front wheel.

Sunday after the tour coverage while two of the girls were taking naps i suited up in the generic kit and headed out to see how the aero position felt on the Klein vs the P-mount over time. Got in a nice 45 minute jaunt. Triceps were a touch sore after about 25 minutes or so, but that's okay. Hopefully i will be doing the TT in less time than that. Position felt good, if not slightly better than the Pmount. And the front aero wheel seemed to be helping a bit.

Rolled around cooled down for a few minutes, and took the corners without braking to remind myself how the Klein cornered and BANG. Fuhuuuukkkkk... that awesome feeling of having a nice ride, feeling great on a dialed in bike went with the breaking of yet another spoke on the Rolf. Yeah. They are old. One broken spoke often leads to another. esp on a low spoke count wheel with very high tension. It wasn't the same spoke, not even the pair of the one that blew. I don't have any extra nipples or the driver. Last time i sent it out to the old shop in Michigan and the fixed it up with my spoke. but... that ain't gonna happen before the race... gonna see if anyone on the team here has a decent aero front i can borrow for the TT. Will just race on my other front wheel in the CR and PR. Why does it matter? I dunno, but i'm feeling pretty good. I've more or less convinced myself that i can probably do really well, and feel optimistic about my chances of winning. (I think i probably caused Solobreak to reach for the monitor wipes to clean the coffee of his screen). Just checking the list. the field is full. should be pretty exciting. None of my team mates succumbed to my lobbying. But well, i didn't expect them to. Would have been fun but well... not much chance to get a numbers advantage against the MRC, the BRC, NEBC or who ever... But i'm geeked, excited and looking to have some fun. not sure how i'm gonna balance/juggle work (yeah gotta work Tues and Wed AM) family (getting them fed and what not - picking up my mother from the airport and getting her to tanglewood) and resting/recovering/eating and hydrating, not to mention driving back and forth. But. ya know. I'm just crazy enough to give it a try. Maybe too crazy.

But. I drove the car in today. Going to get out tonight probably after dinner and put a few efforts in, make the heart and lungs and legs suffer for a few minutes. Shock the crap out of them. See what happens to me if i hold 50kph for ~2k (assuming i can find a decent stretch of road), see how much the tank has left...

Gotta run
no not that kinda running...
but i gotta figure that out this year in cross...
somehow not totally sucking in the run ups towards the end (started off good i thought) of the season
peace and cyclocross
G

Post Addendum...
Thank you to the support of our team someone stepped up and has loaned me a pretty snazzy wheel for the TT. And a medium Giro Advantage helmet. If i can actually get it on my head the squashed ears should help me ignore any pain from the effort made in my legs!

Got the Thompson post on the bike.

Ahhhh. Saddle feels right again. Finally. After the 5 stitches from the broken American Classic post i'm back. Heck maybe that'll give me some more time. Wait. I might not use this bike again. At least it'll get me more comfortable riding the P-mount.

In comparing notes from last night Garber pumped out an extra 100 watts (avg) more than me and turned in a time 1 minute faster than his first go round. He was 15 watts higher first go round fwiw. So, breaking it all down to equivalents ~50 seconds of my increase probably was equipment. For comparison sake. Garber is a little shorter than me, but still a big guy, he's running an SRM with a solid disk rear on a TT bike with REAL TT bars and pads and fancy Zipp front wheel and he's got one of them nice aero helmet things too. But still, it would seem, much of the difference in times can be attributed to the fact that he's nuking ~100 watts more than me over that distance.

So this whole thing with ingredients...



One of the endurance photos is of liquid concentrate (sans HFCS) the other has it. What i noticed in the store the other day was the regular Gatorade didn't have sucrose syrup, just HFCS. And then ya got the powder. But i also realized that the container ya buy at the store is only 18 oz. not the 50 oz that the Endurance powder comes in. So, 3.89 for 18 oz against $25 for 50 gives us roughly 2x the cost factor for the extra salt you are getting in the Endurance powder. Make sense? not for adding salt... but hey stranger stuff is happening out there

Horseshit marketing if ya ask me. That's messed up. But then "endurance" sports are either like running where equipment costs are minimal so a few extra bits for a "better" drink are worth it OR say Tri-geeks who've got more money than brains and a few extra bucks for beverage is fantastic. Sorry. No not every Tri-geek is loaded to the gills. I'm being stereotypical.

Flip the coin over and ya got folks like Cytomax, Enervit, Blahblahblahblah who are charging crazy amounts for not much different stuff. And. People are buying it.

Don't matter if the product is good. If it works. If people buy it? Good. A product could be awesome and effective (shift) and people won't buy it. *shrug*

But lets take a look at ExcelSportsBoulder.com
Enervit Energy (vitamins + sugar) $1.30/oz
Cytomax in the 4.5 (72 oz) can $0.46/oz (1.5 pound can is $0.75/oz)
Cliff is poking in at around $0.68/oz (2 pound can)
Accel stuff is only $0.68/oz
Gatorade (cheap stuff) $0.22/oz (18 oz pack at target price)
Gatorade (salty stuff) $0.50/oz (50 oz pack at Gatorade.com store price)

What isn't covered is how much product is needed to mix up a serving. That said most of this crap is all sugar and ya mix about the same amount if ya want the same CHO loading.

So, really when it comes down to it... does it really matter as long as ya are using what ya like? Prolly not. But i'll say i've always gotten better results with Cytomax. I might just have to break down and try it out... but is the difference between gatorade and cytomax worth the cost? probably... for now i'll just think about it and drink my salted regular gatorade.

yall be good this weekend.

Time to start the Cross drills (so says Radio Freddy)! So go out and do some dismount/remount drills...

peace
G