Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Playing host..
Thursday, March 19, 2009
My mother asked me..
So here I sit, wheel-less until tomorrow, and nothing on it's way to me from Mom either. I've half a mind to go to Providence Bike and buy that Orbea road bike or that Santa Cruz mountain bike I've had my eye on.. (Pause mom just called to wish me happy birthday- is asking me again- what do I want- should I send a link for a pair of Conti race tires or a Dura Ace cassette??)
I'll leave you with this pearl of wisdom which Solobreak shared with me recently:
"Perfect health is just the slowest possible form of death."
The raw truthfulness of it makes my skin crawl.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
FT+ ?%
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
2009 Ebay Purchase No 1
In other news.. For those of you looking for a Campagnolo Record headset or Italian threaded Record bottom bracket, please check out my Ebay store: http://stores.ebay.com/WeeBike. The listings end tomorrow night I believe.. I am also selling my other road bike- the 57 cm carbon EPX with Rolf Vector Pro wheels and Chorus drivetrain. Here's a picture.
If you are in the market for a high end LikeaBike children's bike, please transact at my other site: http://www.weebike.com/, where I make a few more dollars by avoiding Ebay fees. The Paypal buttons are found in the sidebar for each of the bike models. If you have a 2-5 year old child and want to borrow a demo bike for a week before making a buying decision, let me know and I'll bring one to the races for you. Many thanks.
"The coin has dropped"
2009 Bike Commute No 1
Thanks for reading.
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Wells Ave No 1
Saturday, March 14, 2009
How does this happen?
And this is from only one side of my chain. I wouldn't have discovered this without cleaning the muck and filth off of it last night. I was halfway commited to go to Charge Pond or Plainville today, but that would risk iminent equipment failure and injury. No bike shops are open in time for me to fix this situation and make the start line. Next chain will be a 2008 Dura Ace- they're about $35 on Ebay these days.
Friday, March 13, 2009
Power=work/time
20:00 WU
5:00 FT
5:00 RI
3:00 FT+10%
3:00 RI
Repeat 3 more times
10:00 RI
5:00 FT
5:00 CD
Explanation? Work was halfway enjoyable for a change, wife is coming around from her cold, and some other tidbits of good news managed to give me wings. It is pretty scary how factors outside of training and preparation can affect form. In fact it got me to thinking- is it possible that anti-depressant pills such as Prozac and others can enhance an athlete's performance? Let's face it-it's harder to focus on intense training and harder to perform in a race when you are under depression, stress and anxiety. It would not astonish me to discover that this is an idea which is already being abused.
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Thank you Chipotle!
So Saturday I weigh myself pre-ride.. and for the first time in a very long time, I am under 170.. pre-ride.. where before I would set out weighing 172 and get home weighing 168. I'm firmly into the good side of 170. Success!
No riding for the past two days and I'm grumpy.. but to my credit, I have been getting up at 4:30 am to get to Boston appts at 7:00.. That, and dear wife has bronchitis and laryngitis, so I'm playing nurse maid for the past few days. Monday was a deliberate rest day. Last night, not so much.. but I was fatigued from the two early and long days in Boston and stressed about wife being sick, so.. let it be.
I'm eying Plainville and Wells Ave this weekend to have a little fun, but we'll see. If it's under 40 degrees either day, I'll be more inclined to do a couple of long rides. Playing it by ear.. Thanks for reading.
Thursday, March 05, 2009
Dearest in Christ.
Must-contain-maniacal-laughter.. I populate one of my other blogs (www.scamlisting.blogspot.com) with about 4-5 of these Nigerian advance fee fraud e-mails, every day. (Yes it is purely for the Google Adsense dollars, but at least I am truthful- and believe it or not, people have thanked me for it) This is the first time I am seeing a person so twisted that they exploit and lie about terminal illness and religion in one neat little package. The scammers are getting more bold and more creative as the economy goes down in a death spiral. This one is original, I'll give it that. I encourage you to write to these cretins and have fun with a little bit of scam baiting.
|
Tuesday, March 03, 2009
Hell
Friday, February 27, 2009
Airport security
They threw our son's 8 oz container of sealed vanilla milk in the trash (along with our three small bottles of Coke, which we figured would happen) A one liter bottle of water is $5.05
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Only in Cali..
Will you have a female spin instructor who is over 60 and kicking your ass.. We are guest members of the Escondido YMCA this week and let me tell ya, this place makes the Kent County Y look like a pile of Puke, and it makes the best Bally's you ever saw look like a rinky dink P.O.S. Last night's spin class was FULL. After 5 days off the bike it was just the thing- I felt rested and strong. Tonight's class I held something back so that I could drill it hard tomorrow. Now I need to choose which class to do- there are 6 or 7 to choose from throughout the day, all with different instructors. In fact, the entire fitness schedule is up on a pair of 52" plasma screens- kind of like you would find in an airport. Impeccable. Exemplary.
Friday, February 20, 2009
T minus 12 hours
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
San Diego Time
I will not be bringing a bike with me on this trip- we're hoping to find a local YMCA where we can work out and join the spin classes. I will probably go a little insane about not being able to ride, especially if it's sunny and warm, but the thought of carefully packing a bike and paying $100 each way to check it, and potentially have the airline lose it [like the last time], isn't so attractive. In other news, I got my new Powertap sharkfin to replace the one which was repaired twice. No love from The PT folks on this- I payed the full $60 price for this part. Oh well. They did not have a lot of sympathy for the fact that my heart rate strap has never worked properly. I guess I should have reported the problem within the first year of using it, some time before clocking 12000 miles on the thing. I am so tempted to buy a pair of used ZIPP 404's with PT.. Tubular.. I can use this tank-like DT hoop as a training wheel and race on the good stuff. Before you begin to throw rotten tomoatoes for suggesting ZIPP with PT, consider that the very best data comes from racing. Being that this stuff interests me and engages me immensely, it makes sense for me where it might seem silly to others.
The last time I was in San Diego for the 2007 ToC stage in Long Beach. Mark Mc and I coincidentally raced the masters crit which was held right before the pros raced on the nearly identical course. I did not finish due to a crash. No, due to the officials not realizing there had been a crash- they pulled my group of 10 guys in complete ignorance- we were chasing after coming to a complete stop to avoid the crash.. which was caused by someone hitting one of those infamous reflective pucks at 33 mph. For the 1/2 race that I did complete, we averaged 28+ mph, in February. I think Mark got 3rd or 4th. I wonder who I which New Englanders I might bump into this time out in Escondido??