Wednesday, August 27, 2008

My easy week so far


This is my office. I'm not spending much time here this week.

Last night, however, was the final Morgan-Monroe 10mile TT. I have no interest in time trialing at this point in the year. I've TT'd more this year than I have in my life, and while I love racing bikes, and like TT'ing, I just am done w/ the pain of TT'ing for this season.
So...I volunteered to time last eve's TT. I rode out nice and easy on my road bike, timed, but the ride back was different story. The 2 fastest TTers around here were good and warmed up after throwing course record breaking times, and neither wanted to show a chink in the armour on the ride in. I was torn between wanting to ride easy and not wanting to be dropped, so I decided I would hang until the Fire Station climb, and if they were going to continue to race up the hill, I would drop off. We were flying in, close to 30 the whole way, and sure enough up the climb all take off like bats out of hell, so I sat up and rode in alone. Sometimes you just have to suck up your pride and ride your own pace.
Funny thing is, I woke up feeling sore this morning after all that.
I plan to ride ~1hr easy tomorrow, then take the rest of the week off, and hopefully do Nashville 90 Monday (labor day).

Sunday, August 24, 2008

Indy Stage Race


While in a Walgreens in Indy getting some post-race foods (pic2), I noticed this Hannah Montana pregnancy test display. Parents, watch you tweens, the Hillary Duff abortion kit may be next!



Pic 2 is my choice of nourishment after racing 2 races Saturday. Chippos for salt, dried fruit for sugar and turkey Slim Jim for protein. This all turned out to be a good idea, as i ended up in stand still traffic for 50min on I465 south on the way back.
The Race(s):
Saturday was RR/TT. The RR for this stage race is a Cat 1-2-3 race, so there are a few people there that ride out of my league, figuratively and literally. A break of 7people spent the whole race off the front, so the rest of the group rode for 8+ places. Two other guys and myself did 100% of the work the whole race. Eventually it occurred to me that (at least) 2 Cat 3's were sitting on my wheel (and the two guys I was working with), so we forced them into the mix of working, but they short pulled every time, like total pussies, leaving the bulk of the work to me and the two other dudes. 5 of us broke off at the very end and I took 5th in that sprint for 12th oa.
Two hours or so later was the 5mile TT.
Won that mother*.
*-actually, another guy and I went exactly the same time, 9min 44sec, so we both won. What are the odds of that? So....
...that dude and I went onto race three, the Indy State Fairgrounds crit tied for 1st. here's how it played out on the line: me/St. Vincent guy tied for 1st, another St. Vincent guy 2nd, IN Hand Center guy third. St. Vincent shows up w/ 6 guys, Hand Center 4 and me alone. I said to myself prior to start "this could be ugly for me." A break formed on the gun, but the 4 of us (2 St. Vincent, 1 Hand Center, me) were all marking each other, and let the break go (it ultimately lapped the field). The Hand Center dude attacked and attacked, totally fruitless. Eventually St. Vincent took the front, as they should, and I just sat on them. Knowing my only chance was to break off, I took off on the past lap, got a little gap, but came into the final corner way fast (~36mph) and had to brake hard to not kill myself and was caught. All three of the people I needed to beat, beat me on the line (my sprint leaves much to be desired) and I ended up fourth for the race weekend, which is off the podium, but in the money!
The overall points took some figuring and re-figuring since Hand Center team leader Bob Brooks, who can no longer hang w/ the big boys, down-graded to a Cat. III and while not a factor on GC, took points from a few of us in the RR.
Overall, a good weekend of racing (and winning $$).
After the race I went to Town Run MTB park to meet a dude to sell him my old V-Brakes. I brought my MTB and thought I'd ride a little if I felt up to it, I felt fine so busted out two laps of TRTP. I'll race there in a few weeks, so I figured a little refresher couldn't hurt, since I ride there only once a year at the race.
The Indy riders are so fast there, I just have to settle in and ride my own race. I crashed and totally threw my back out there last year, and I DO NOT want a repeat of that.
I'm going to take a few days off this week for some rest. I plan to go to Louisville this Sunday to watch some friends in Ironman.

Monday, August 18, 2008

My Tuesday morning (and week)




Last Tuesday was a MMSF 10mile TT in the evening, so I spent the morning getting my cyclocross bike ready for the season. Well, kind of for the season. Me and a couple of guys are going to do the Huntington Challenge, which is a 140mile race over two days w/ on and off road sections, but you can't switch bikes. I usually run my CX bike w/ a single ring on front, but I'm going to need standard road gearing for this race, so it's set up 53x39.
Plus Rawny Semba, master wheel builder, built the tasty wheels in picture #2. These are my time tested, trusty King hubs laced onto a Salsa CX specific rim. I'm psyched on these wheels.
This brings me to my next rave: disc brakes on MTB.
Yesterday was the DINO race at Logansport. This would be my second ride and first race discs. Holy crap! I would never have thought that brakes could make you go faster, but I was able to carry more speed into turns and obstacles, brake way smoother and w/ less effort, which allowed me to re-accelerate faster. Blew my mind. Having to bleed the rear 7 times to get it functional was totally worth it.
After the race (which saw another mod pack finish by be, but I rode really, really well, others just rode really, really, better), we went to my parent's to hang for a while and had pizza. Lindsay and I also stopped by the old Frankfort ice cream staple, The Milky Way. I have buried the hatchet I wielded for so long w/ the owners of the place, and I enjoyed the ice cream much. And the visit w the 'rents.

This weekend is a triple-header w/ the Indiana Stage Race in Indy. RR/TT Sat. Crit Sun. I hope to be feeling good and peppy, the season is getting loooong.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

They're back...


I snapped this on my ride to work Saturday morn.

Unfortunately, this is how a lot of the "college kids" treat our town. About every other car you see is U-Haul and about every other residence toward campus looks about like this. And school doesn't even start for a month or so.
On the academic front, my brother is coming back here from Chicago this week to bring a friend of his' son for a college visit. I want to make his visit something straight out of PCU, but I'm way too lazy and way to big of a loser.

So this week in training: normal week, but I skipped Tuesday cause it was raining. I was touch under 9hrs, even w/ a two-a-day today. We rode the Gaitesville, which is a touch under 70miles, in just under 3hrs! That is flying-ass-on-fire-fast for that ride. Then I wanted to ride my MTB, because I will likely race it this coming weekend, and i just put new brake son it. I wanted to have the chance to get a feel for them before racing on them. I put Shimano XT disc brakes on, and I've run 'old school' V-brakes until now. I rode ~40 minutes at the Wapahani Park, which I drove to. Normally I would ride there, but I wasn't feeling it after killing the Gaitseville route. The brakes work perfectly, and I think I won't have any problems adjusting to their drastically different feel. (believe it or not, in all of my bike shop years, these were the first discs I've installed 100% from scratch [cutting hydraulic line, installing hydraulic fittings, etc] which is much harder than just bolting them on, I had to bleed the front one twice and the rear 6 times to get them functional)
I'm watching mad Olympics currently. I'm kind of a junky to it. I was even watching Badminton earlier. I thought water polo would be fun to watch, it actually sucked pretty bad, I switched it over to badminton.

R.I.P. Bernie Mac.

Sunday, August 03, 2008

Expensive? Yes. Waste of money? Probably.


This is a cup of the highly exotic Kopi Luwak coffee. You know, the coffee harvested from cat poop.
I have wanted to try this since hearing about it several years ago. But since only about 1,000 pounds of it are available in the world market annually, I didn't really think I ever would. But Bloomington Coffee Roasters got some and it is available at Sahara Mart grocery store. it is $20 for a 2ounce bag, hence the title of this post.
I will say this though, it is very interesting and very good. it is very rich and very bold, yet mild and not over powering. I think I can get 4 cups out of the 2 ounce bag if I brew it in the french press, so that makes it a $5 cup of coffee, which judged on Starbuck's scale makes it cheap.
Lindsay insists she can make me some of this coffee, given our three cats, but I want Luwak poop coffee, not lazy house cat coffee.

I felt like a million bucks riding today. I went to ride a team ride, and only one other guy showed up (Gerraint Parry), but he was feeling like less-than-a-million bucks, so he turned off early (in his defense, he rode ~60miles w/ Ryan Shanahan yesterday, and for people that aren't used to riding w/ RS, it can be quite a shock to the system). I wanted to get in ~60miles, but ended up w/ a touch under 50. Oh well, I rode really superbly.
And I got the yard mowed.
And I weeded my pepper garden.
And Rally Car racing is in the X Games this year and is on this afternoon.
And there's a Bluegrass band playing this evening at Bryan Park, just over the hill from our house.
And I drank cat poop coffee.

Due to skipping Wednesday (rain), I ended up w/ less than 9 hrs this week, but they were good solid hours, so I'll take it; the season, she's getting long.