If you’re gettin’ cottonmouth you’d better drink some water

The past couple of weeks have been some fun in the yard. A neighbor working at a local nursery told us about a tree and shrub sale and we went crazy. They delivered 14 trees and nearly as many shrubs and bushes. They are almost all planted now and in a few years the yard is going to look pretty sweet.

A few Sundays ago the yardwork put me over the top. After spending quite a few hours riding with the boys I pulled in the garage, changed into the yard clothes and started up the weed-wacker. I had skipped a week of cutting the lawn because last week it didn’t look too long. Mistake. It took nearly 3 times as long to edge and about twice as long to mow. I made sure to continue drinking water while I worked because it was getting warmer. Once I finished I realized how cracked I was.

I know why I cracked at that point on Sunday. The weekend was fairly busy with the kids swimming a meet on Friday night and Saturday morning in the cold and then a fun afternoon of racing in Sugarhood Park in the afternoon. I had my best finish ever at Sugarhood so that is great, but it’s sad to say that it was 4th place. However, the big winner was none other than local superhero T-bird and it’s always great to simply finish the race after he’s ripped legs off. I think someone is going to be killing it at TofU this year! So thanks to T-bird for putting the hurt on dumping me in the pain cave by Sunday afternoon.

It looks like J-lao has been killing it in the land of Suisse and T-bird is going to blow the top on Tour de Nez this week so we’ll not have to nuke ourselves this weekend. That really may not be the case because getting over Bald Mtn Pass ends up nuking me whether I’m going fast or slow. I’m sure someone’s got their climbing legs out of the storage bin for this one. Hint of the week: follow Hageman…he is currently riding out of his mind. It will definitely be great training for TofU.

The kids are in the midst of one of their biggest swim meets of the year. It started last night with 1500 meter freestyle and goes through Saturday night. J-dorade put down a Junior Olympic qualifying time on her first try. She looked smooth and stayed right on the time target her coach determined. Both of them are back at it tonight.

 

You can’t have some rock lest you have some roll

Race update: Sohmy and Don Roberto lit it up at the Gila. Sohmy came away with a 2nd place finish on Stage 2 and 15th overall. Don Roberto had a solid week finishing 6th on Stage 1 and 7th on Stage 4 Criterium closing out the race in 10th. T-Bird looked tough all week, especially in this shot going up the final climb off the front of the pack finishing a solid 2nd in the Pro race. Great job guys!

The racing in Utah was pretty fun this last weekend. Unfortunately, the Buffalo Stampede on Antelope Island didn’t happen. However, a criterium replaced it on the schedule in a business park in Ogden. It was flat and four corner with 2 long straights. Jens Crispy started like he was shot out of a canon and immediately strung the field out. I could tell it was lighting people up pretty good so I just made sure to stay close to the front. BadMF was in there at the times Jens & I were toasted. Jens Crispy continued to dish out the pain every chance he got. It’s probably a good thing A-train wasn’t there and in the break that was finally established. He would have freaked out. We’ll leave it at that. It was a really fun race. Good speeds, wind, and 2nd and 4th for me and Jens. Not too bad. The Hoff pulled off a sweet sprint at the finish. That guy can spin a fast cadence.

On Sunday I got in a long ride with Jens Crispy. He put the hammer down on the Suncrest climb from Highland. Not only can he light it on the flats, he puts it down in the hills as well. The rest of the afternoon was nice. I pulled off at the pool to watch the kids have a technique lesson and then headed for home to work on the garage/storage shed project. TuffShed came by last week to build an 8×8 in the backyard to help us with our overall organization in the basement and garage. It’s amazing how much stuff we have. D-oza was giving me a hard time as I was trying to decide what old cycling equipment I should keep. I really should just call Sly and have him pick it up to sell. The next step is setting up the garage with shelving for storage. The garage is really tall so we’ll be able to stack it steep and deep.

 

Rock & Roll Tower of Dynamite

Quick update on the Porcs at Tour of the Gila:

Stage 1: Mogollon Road Race - Roberto makes the move of the day and finishes 6th on the stage. Sohmitron rolls 29th. They both say it was ridiculously difficult on the final climb but are feeling good for stage 2. Roberto sits 6th overall G.C. in Cat.2.

Stage 2: Inner Loop Road Race - You get to see the final climb of the Stage 5 as a descent on the Stage 2 course. Sohmitron puts the hammer down and makes the move with G.C. guys to cover Roberto. G.C. guys hammer and Sohmy plays it smart. With 500m to go Sohmy throws down the long bomb and barely gets caught at the line for a 2nd place finish! Roberto follows in 13th. Today’s finish puts Roberto in 4th overall and Sohmy moves up to 20th overall.

Quick update on the Porc’s in Utah:

East Canyon: 1 - 2 finish!

DMV: Snowed out

Saltair TT: Snowed out

I double checked the calendar and it really is May 1st.

 

Keep on killing it Roberto and Sohmitron! Nice work!

 

Something different

The kids are on spring break as well as a break from swimming. They’ve been dying to go skiing so we got them hooked up with lessons Saturday and Sunday. After the Sunday lesson I ended doing some knee-dragging and then we went out today for more. Saturday and Sunday were up at Brighton and we spent today at Alta. Thanks to TylerMac for the sweet hook-up at Brighton 0n Sunday.

I’ve included photographic proof that I actually hit the slopes and made the attempt to drag some knee. The sun was pretty bright so the photos are dark, but you can see my lactate smile in the first one. Talk about lactate fatigue setting in too soon. I also had a run-in with some free-skiing teenagers in the lift line.

Poser punk #1: “Dude, check out that guys sticks. He doesn’t have his heel locked in and they’re not bright pink.”

DH: “That’s right dude, my tele set up could light your flourescent twin tips.”

Poser punk #1: “Shut up you knee dragger.”

Poser punk #2: “Suuuhhhweet sucka!”

DH: “Have your mom buy you some.”

J-dorade lighting things up:

J-vanator making some sweet turns:

J-dorade showing J-vanator the right line:

 

Tall cans in the air…

We’re talking tall cans of chocolate milk for this celebration. The kids are in the middle of Utah Junior Swim State Championships and they have done great! Friday night J-vanator threw down with his team of 10 and unders in the 200 medley relay and brought home the state championship. In addition, both J-vanator and J-dorade have dropped time to set personal bests in nearly all of their events. J-dorade is learning to dig deep and she put down a supremely fast 26.2 in a 50 freestyle. It happened to be the anchor leg of the 200 medley relay. Very impressive. Fun stuff! The final day is Saturday and I’m sure there will be more of the impressive throw down.

So it’s been nearly a month since an update. I’ve been spending too much time gluing tires, replacing bearings and putting together bikes. There’s also been a great deal of time riding bikes as well. I am still far too obsessed with the PowerTap. Being able to have numbers to look at really push me to keep seeing the numbers I want to see. Last Sunday evening I paid the price after a 5 hour ride. I could barely move and it took until Tuesday to feel ready to pedal again.

The strangest update of late is the trip to the MTB race in San Jorge. Rico even has proof. He arranged for me to ride a sweet Epic Marathon. Racing in the dirt was a good refresher on how much fun you can have on a bike. You get to go so hard you feel like throwing up, and that’s in the first 5 minutes. Getting dirty is another bonus. The best part about this particular weekend was the 80 degree weather. If you can’t tell, I really enjoyed myself. There may be a few more dirt races in the cards for me this year and likely more for ‘09. SuperGlen has been reminding me what I’ve been missing for the past few years. Cyclocross last fall was a great reminder.

Questions for the day: Do we create our own futility? Should we take absurdity so seriously? Is life absurd and does death render it meaningless? Tufo tape or continental glue for road sew-ups?

 

Back to my old ways

The past few weeks since have been very busy. I had the intention of keeping this space updated. A very informative and productive trip to Denver got in the way. I made my way to the Serotta International Cycling Institute’s 2nd Annual Cycling Science Symposium. Seriously, try saying that 3 times, FAST. If you want to go to a 3 day long, 8-10 hour per day, information overload on science related to bicycling, make sure you are there next year. It’s been two weeks since I’ve been home and I am just now able to go back over my notes due to a near meltdown of being around too many smart people. The brain swelling finally reduced. I’ll give a specific update on some of the latest research going on in cycling later.

The last post spoke of bike boxes waiting to be built. There’s only one left now, but I’m really crossing my fingers for the new Transition. It looks to be a speed demon. The new carbon cross bike has not yet been pulled from the bike. There are big plans for the cross bikes. Team Rico hooked me up with a AlphaQ for the aluminum S-Works, and there is just no bike quite like the S-Works Carbon cross bike. It’s February and I’m excited for cross bikes. I’m still in cycling nirvana.

A couple of comments about early racing and drum lessons came up. Yes, I am learning to play the drums with J-vanator. It is a good time and I now listen to the percussion on every song I hear to decide what the beat pattern is and how many bars I think I could play. The lessons are coming along well. J-vanator is a natural. The other day he said he was having trouble deciding if he should be a professional swimmer or a rock star. Sweet!

Early season racing is not going to happen for me this year. I’ve got a super-secret training schedule and for the first time I am going to attempt to target specific races for peak fitness. I’ve only got one comrade down at VotS. Roberto is throwing down for the team down south. With my particular race calendar focus, VotS was not in the cards. While the road race is going on today I will be putting in some time on the road bike, and by time I mean many hours. Fortunately the temperatures look like they are going to give me a break.

It has recently come to my attention that I drink substantially too much coffee and eat too much and the wrong type of cereal. The Lucky Charm days are over, and sadly, 120 ounces of coffee days are gone as well. I guess it is time to get back to gram scale. There you go Samurai, I count 5 things.

I also have to mention a new toy I have to play with. A PowerTap 2.4 Wireless arrived 10 days or so ago and I have been having fun with it. The CompuTrainer has been my sole power training tool up to this point. Besides the fact that I can obsess about my wattage while on 5 hour rides, the tool is wireless. Here’s the setup. 1 - Pull the wheel out of the box. 2 - Install rubber and cassette. 3 - Zip tie the mount to your handlebar. 4 - Kit up and throw your leg over. 5 - Instant wattage, speed, HR…blah blah blah…in your face! Needless to say, I sat on Crispy’s wheel for 30 to 45 seconds at 600+ watts, and by 600+ watts I mean crosseyed! Did you note that I mentioned I was on his wheel.

Alright, group ride meets up at 9:00 a.m. at Starbucks where 13th East and Union Park intersect bot Saturday and Sunday. Be there!

I wonder if Sohmy is still sleeping right now…

 

It’s Thursday Already

The dog’s internal alarm went off at about 5:45 this morning so I thought I’d put the time to use. I would usually think it was a good time to get my workout in but I got off the trainer last night a little before 10:00 and I’m not quite ready to spend more time on it until later today. Another 10:00 p.m. arrival time.

So last night I needed to get 2.5 in of really slow cadence. I thought it would be a boring evening. Before jumping on the trainer I needed to buy a plane ticket to Denver. The last time I checked prices, about a week ago, Dental Airlines was charging over $200 round trip. I gave it another shot because I’m not to excited about attempting to drive to Denver at the end of January. That was the plan last year. I planned to drive on the last Sunday of January to Boulder. I checked the weather on Saturday afternoon and it did not look good. D-oza said I should check out flight prices. Sure enough, Dental Airlines was offering a killer price since the plane was nearly empty.

With a pretty expensive ticket purchased well in advance of my travel, I got the bike on the trainer and started turning over that slow cadence with a focus on maintaining a solid wattage. I set the CompuTrainer on an 80K course that was rolling just to add to the overall fun. The kids arrived home from swim team just as I got started so the first 90 minutes of the ride included spelling test practice, a review of conservation of energy. and some drum practice. Speaking of drums, J-vanator and I had our first drum lesson Tuesday night. So far I stink. However, I am committed to rock! J-vanator spends his time riding in the car to and from school counting the beat to The White Stripes, Black Keys, Dandy Warhols, etc and air drumming.

After the homework hall session of 90 minutes I only had another hour to go. No problem. I grabbed the iPod and found the latest Spoon album. It lasted me nearly the final hour. Oddly, as soon as the songs ran out, so did my reserve tank. I had to stop the 60 rpm and attempt to pedal at 90+. My legs didn’t quite get it for a while. D-oza and I discussed potential 2008 race schedule while I tried to get the legs turning over. I’m 90% set on a plan for the season. It will take all of my effort and focus to reach this season’s goals. Focus and determination. On the bike it’s not too tough!

Sad news that happened about a month ago that has not yet been discussed. The super incredible deluxe S-Works Carbon Tricross was destroyed December 16. The garage header has been tried and convicted of heinous bicycle destruction. Being a second offender, the garage header paid big. There are plans to remodel! The good news came the following Tuesday. An S-Works box with a 2008 S-Works Carbon Tricross arrived. There are now 4 neat looking S-Works boxes anxiously awaiting parts kits from SRAM. This is the fun and exciting time of year for bicycle racing motivation. Breaking out the new frames and checking out the latest lines before parts are plugged in is lots of fun. MMMMM…carbon.

Alright, I’m going to have to brew another pot of coffee since D-oza ripped off a big mug and I have been typing for way too long. Roccomatic and Bellatron say hello. Team Rico and Sohmy are responsible.

Saturday and Sunday are group ride days. The Porcalized crew rolls out from $tarbuck$ at the intersection of Union Park Ave. and 13th East. Meet us there at 9:00 a.m., the unofficial start time since we start at $tarbuck$ and need to partake of at least some espresso before we light things up. AJ might even be there.

I wonder if Sohmy is still asleep…

 

Cyclocross in O-town

Yesterday was the final race of the Utah Cyclocross series. With double points on the line I thought we’d have a bigger field. However, the conditions were pretty epic. I got to the race early to watch some of the action and maybe see a few good cornering lines. It was a sloppy mess. Excellent.

Highlights:

• AliG putting the hurt on early and holding on for a solid 2nd
• Bartman bringing back a 35 second gap for the victory with less than 3 to go
• Team Rico taking a podium finish in a sprint with less than 50 meters to go
• DH only crashing once in messy conditions, but the bummer was that I was with Rico and A-train

Pre-race:

Post-race:

I think I’m going to take the bike apart. Fortunately I never had to resort to the back-up bike so I only had one to clean.

 

hmmmm….and on to Back at It, Part II

At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face.

–Albert Camus

I’ve always enjoyed reading Camus, Kafka and Dostoevsky. Their view, in general, is that man determines his existence. Without existence there is no being. There is no order to nature or the universe. Man is faced with determining meaningfulness in life and has the responsibility to live a meaningful life for its own sake. At any particular time, as Camus states, absurdity will strike you in the face. Thinking about it really made me think harder and I came close to being struck right between the eyes, or something like that.

Currently the training is absolutely killing it. It’s like I’ve been on a break since the end of September. Cyclocross racing has been a blast and I’ve hardly put any time on the bike, except for the week I was riding the SL2. By the way,  we have one in the shop for you to drool over. Come on down and see it! Seems like I keep returning to the SL2. I’ve been considering throwing all of my bike funds for 2008 and taking that one on the floor.

By the by, check out this and tell me what you think of the colors and layout. Constructive criticism please.

 

California wrap-up, back at it Part 1

The trip to Morgan Hill was a big success. The fit class was great and it was a lot of fun to dial in the fitting process. It was also really cool to see the engineering and design processes and ride some new bikes. I doubt I’ll pick up an Epic any time soon, but the SL2 is beyond cool. Hopefully there will be some available sometime soon. The Roubaix SL looked good, but I stuck with the SL2 all week since I was one of the first to get a fit out of the group. The Roubaix SL is super cool. I raced it for most of TofU last year and really enjoyed the stability of the ride.

I had an interesting end to the time away. When the class was scheduled I realized that it was the week of State Champs cyclocross. That kind of bummed me out because I wanted to do well and was concerned about having enough rest or enough riding that week. It was also announced in the class materials that you would have to schedule a late flight if you planned on leaving Friday evening.

I looked for a flight leaving late on Friday and there was nothing available. The earliest flight out of San Jose was 6:00 a.m. and the only other flight on Saturday was in the afternoon. It definitely had to be the 6:00 a.m., which means I would need to be picked up from the hotel at 4:00 a.m. Ouch. I guess I am taking cyclocross a little more serious than I had originally planned. Big surprise.