Sooo....I'm a cat 2

...which, if you don't speak Superweak lingo, means I suck. Made roughly a cameo appearance at today's race, sprinting up a hill and then losing any places I gained while being a pussy on the wet downhill corners. After I removed myself from the race I rode around downtown Milwaukee, nearly killed myself by riding into oncoming traffic, and then accidentally left my bike leaning against the car for 30 minutes while I walked around moping. Fortunately nobody stole it. Regardless, it was a bad day.

Conclusions: I need to ride, eat, and sleep more and do everything else less. I also need to learn how to ride my bike. The end.

Shorewood-Roubaix and a Restful Day

My day three of Stupor-week brought me to a wonderplace called "Wisconsin." The entire north side of Chicago was under construction, so I had to take a ferry up the coast until I was safely north of the Cheddar Curtain. I've been diligently throwing $.75 out the window every 5 miles, per the instructions on my "Hey Dair all you FIBs" brochure that was given to me at the Cheese and Porn Welcome Center. Things are differnt up here: in addition to open road tolling, they have signs and lights and barriers for lane closures that don't exist, causing stop and go traffic in places where there is no construction. I think it's just to keep the Chicago drivers comfortable with their surroundings. I'd wager they had problems with drivers in northbound traffic falling alseep before they set up all of the fake construction.

Anyway, I attempted to race my bike on Friday for 20 minutes over some of the worst pavement I have ever ridden. I honstly believe parts of the 400 meters between turns 1 and 2 must have been on par with proper cobbles. I could barely keep my hands on the bars when trying to brake. Then there was a fire in an apartment on the course, and we were stopped for about half an hour. Just about everyone had a quick natural break between a couple buildings (the firetrucks were right by the blue poo-boxes), and some of us rolled around to pretend our legs weren't cooling down. We got back to racing with twenty something laps to go with about 9 prime laps left, including one $1500 prime, so the pace was turned to eleven for most of the race. I sat in, felt tired, and finished poorly. I found out afterwards that my rear hub on the new fastwheel was loose, allowing the rim to rub the brakes. Fortunately it was the brake with Kool-Stop pads (previously reviewed), so I doubt the rubbing slowed me down, though it did provide me with an excellent professional excuse (I believe Armstrong has used this one in the past). The consolation prize was that I got to go to MJs (my host housing) after the race, and she keeps sugary ceral in the cupboard.

Speaking of cereal, on my way out of UC I stopped at the food Co-Op and filled a Hammer Nutrition bottle with Fruit Museli. I've had delicious and filling breakfasts all week. :)

Yesterday was a rest day, so I went on an easy 2 hour ride north of Milwaukee. It was legitimately cold (62F), so I was glad I packed my arm and knee warmers. I discoverd that in the near north suburbs Friday is landscaping and driveway resurfacing day. The riding was fantastic, as every road either had a shoulder or 25mph speed limit. My legs felt ok--I even climbed a hill from the lakefront at Tour type outputs (for 1 whole minute) and otherwise did no real efforts. Nobody honked at me or tried to run me over, as apparently has become common in CU since I left--I've receieved very sad stories from the CCB listserv this week.

I made pizza with lots of nummies on top and a paper thin soggy crust on the bottom. Not bad considering I didn't use a recipe or measuring devices. I even hand tossed each crust into a triangle and rectangle, respectively. I'll watch an instructional YouTube video (movie? film?) before I try next time.

Fin.

The Ray Basso Bensenville Criterium

This course is shaped like a camel with two humps, and for that reason alone I raced it despite the curb-hop turn 300 meters from the finish. Anona, this is your kind of course, as I think it might be faster to dismount and run over the burm rather than try to hop over it every lap. But regardless, race summary:

I lined up early to get a good starting position...and somehow managed to end up in the second to last row. Fail. Managed a decent start, and then proceeded to race with an absolute minimum of feck. I felt good through the first half (3o laps), but never put my nose in the wind except to move up when things slowed down, as I knew it was only a matter of time before I started to feel bad. For about 10 laps I wondered why I race bikes, asked myself if I really enjoy hurting this much, imagined how much more comfortable sleeping is, contemplated the nature of suffering, wondered when I was going to get popped out, and decided crappy bottles should be banned (and now, thinking about this, I realize I forgot to pick up the two crappy bottles I discarded, one of which was the Wisconsin bottle I nabbed after collegiate regionals my freshman year).

With 20 to go I realized I was actually going to finish and started moving up a bit more, such that if the leader crapped his bibs I might actually be able to notice. Rolling in the front of the field is so fantastically smooth it might be classified as easy, at least for people like me who hate accelerating. With 9 to go I suddenly became stupid and jumped off the front for half a lap, and then did it again with 7 to go. That move included 2 other gents (my first Superweek break), and we stuck it for 2 laps. Then I blacked out, we got lapped, and the guys at the start line rang a bell, which resulted in us sprinting. It's like a big sick Pavlovian experiment out there. I finished 16th in the sprint, but there were apparently 11 more riders who had lapped us, so I was out of the money at 27th. Not really sure when all of those guys got away, but I'm guessing it was with 30-2o to go when I was too busy with philosophy to race bikes.

Product review:

These pads rule

These pads suck

Finally, I spoke with Tim the Bissel guy with huge calves (Nick, you have been put to shame) before the race, and he said he's so big so that if he doesn't get podiums at least he gets the girls, and then everyone wins. Post race I heard him say something along those lines to one of the Garmin gents who is racing. I chided him, and then he told me about girls."If you wiggle the string, cats go freakin nuts, but if you let it sit still too long they get bored and go away. Chicks are like cats--make them realize they want to get to know you, not the other way around. Insult them just a little and then and then turn it around into a compliment--'You have really big teeth...but I kinda like that.'" I'm quoting poorly, it was quite poetic at the time (or maybe the oxygen hadn't reached my brain yet). If Tim is available, an invitation has been extended to yourst truly to be wingman for a night and learn the tricks of his other trade. I wonder what Tour riders do the evenings of their rest days. I'm guessing rest.

Time to do it again.

Arlington Heights

I will begin with my excuses: I didn't position myself in the field well, didn't move up enough when I had the chance, and the peeps in front of me did the same.

The pictured bottle sucks in two ways: one, the top tends to explode off when I try to open the nozzle with my teeth. Two, the stupid top bit with the rubber thingy gets stuck on the top part of my bottle cage when the bottle tries to jump out over bumps. I've tightened the cage (the cheap-o wire cages can do that...just bend them), but I'm never using these bottles again. Crap.

Race recap: I got a bad start, sprinted, sprinted around popped riders, sprinted, exploded two water bottles all over myself, sprinted, tried to sprint around popped riders, failed, quit. Get off the back. The end.

Sometimes when I mean to say slushy...

...I accidentally say slutty.

Also, I'm currently searching the bathroom for a hidden ceiling-mounted swing. Ask Anona if you really want to know.

Brutal.

PS double plus thanks to Brent for the 3-speed hub.

Double+ Metric

I am le tired. Nick rode 117 miles on the group ride this Saturday, so he had this year's house record for longest ride. Since I'm a fast boyy and he's not, I found this...troubling. After our first post-work ride on Saturday, bChan and I took an easy recovery ride and then found ourselves locked out of the house...thanks for missing the group ride and rescuing us, Danona! We went to my high school to watch the spring musical, as my brother and sister were both in it this year. Check back for an in depth review. We had dinner at a pub that was already in St. Patrick's Day mode. I think I had leftovers. It was delicious.

Today I decided to go for a long ride. I wasn't sure how long, but I packed four (4) bottles and my debit card. The first step for doing all of your base in one day is lower your saddle and move it back. Just a little, but this will ensure you use different muscles than you've been traning since the last time you moved your saddle...over a year ago. Basically nothing happened as I rode the grid all the way to Hayworth (though I did have this song stuck in my head from time to time), which I thought was Bloomington from far away. I rolled into Bloomington, bought a bunch of nummies, asked a motorcyclist for directions (2 wheelers have to stick together), and meandered out of town. Then I marveled at the body's ability to run as long as it has food and air, wondered why the friggin' farmers burn e'rything at this time of year, smacked a bad dog in the nose, pet a good dog on the head, thought every water tower was Champaign, lost interest in eating (but I still did it), and bought a pizza at the sto' on the way into town. Almost 8 hours later, here I am.

This brings me to my point. Professional cyclists are basically machines paid to eat, sleep, and ride their bicycle. That's three (3) things. Sometimes, they are expected to do two (2) things at the same time, such as eating while riding their bike. No big deal, right? As such, losing a stage race because "I forgot to eat and drink correctly" might fly until you're a cat three (3), at which point you graduate to knowing how to do things. I do not understand how this happens, especially with domestiques bringing you food and your directeur sportif yelling in your ear all day. And now I'm doomed to bonk horribly in a race this year.

The poll on Tour of Gila was thoroughly indecisive, continuing our streak of useless polls to two (2). Whoever voted "no" is boring.

Argh...someone left the oven on broil. Brutal. (I'm still going to eat the pizza.)

Read the instructions

I learned two things today:

one (1): Per the !WARNING on my "Shimano Total Integration Features Booklet and Introduction to Every Language Ever Spoken"

Use a frame with internal cable routing is strongly discouraged as it has tendencies to impair the SIS shifting function due to its high cable resistance.

O rly?


shtwo (2): Je suis très pleased avec mon purchase de TIME pédales. In the included pamphlet "!Attention and Hiding the English Behind as many Languages as Possible", I learned that my pedals

are equipped with a system of adjustment of release, it makes it possible to adapt the feelings according to your physical state, of the ground, philosophy, practice, etc...

I appreciate companies that take the extra time to make sure Feng shui and a sense of inner peace comes standard with every item. Thank you TIME. Thime.