Twitter...

Is without a doubt one of the dumbest inventions ever.

http://twitter.com/dzabriskie
http://twitter.com/ghincapie
https://twitter.com/lancearmstrong

Wheelie Fun joins Project Velo

http://www.wheeliefun.com/

Wheelie Fun joins Project Velo as a partner! I think this means that I will be buying a Felt soon....
Wheelie Fun will also be in charge of fitting me to my road bike and TT bike. Should be 'fun' for them.

Oh never mind

Since I wrote that last post; my trip to Michigan was canceled and I've ridden twice (both inside but oh well).

Oh do I love 10 minute intervals........

blah

Apparently, I have no time or energy anymore to ride. Well really it's when I have the time, I have no energy. When I have the energy I have no time. Blogging will be none existent until I ride again.

See you in 2009. Time for bed.

The weak in review

Yep, getting tired of Spinervals. Last week I ordered yet another dvd, this time it's the Uphill Grind. I had this on VHS back in the day but gave it away a few years ago when my VCR went kaboom. Anyway, Uphill Grind has 6 women cyclists, so that already is an upgrade from Cycling Fitness Results dvd. It's only 45 minutes, but if you play it twice...well that's an hour and a half.

My cycling program went like this the past seven days:

20.64 miles
23.17 miles
23.75 miles
20.63 miles
off
27 miles
15.22 miles (today)

The only day I didn't do long intervals was the off day, duh, and yesterday where it was 1.5 hours of just endurance riding.

Where in the world did I muster the mental toughness (and ass toughness) to ride for 3+ hours last year????

Big news coming. Waiting for official word that I'm allowed to let the cat out of the bag. Stay tuned.

Hellard Design confirms for 2009

Hellard Design has announced that they will continue to sponsor the Project Velo Racing team through the 2009 season.

The Dayton, Ohio architectural/civil design firm has been a sponsor of the team since it's inception in 2007.

"Even with the current economic situation, it's important for us to continue our sponsorship and support the riders of this team and the sport of cycling in general." Says Bryan Hellard, owner of Hellard Design.

On the web:
hellarddesign.com
projectveloracing.com

What is there to report...

...when all you're doing is long intervals on the trainer? I can't exactly tell stories of seeing great sites or climbing big hills or going fast while I'm impatiently waiting out the winter on the trainer.

The first "race" of the year IS only 5.5 weeks away though. So I have that to look forward to. A race, on a trainer.

In case you're wondering...

The dvd "Lactate Threshold" was 2~20 minute intervals between 3~10 minute rest periods. This was the "easy" level. This time it was 4 guys and 1 woman. There was absolutely no motivation to push yourself. Back to coach Troy I guess.

Like the old Bugs Bunny cartoon, my head turned into a jackass after realizing I spent $60 on these.

The dumbest product I've ever used

In the mail today came the two dvd's I talked about last week. So naturally with the weather being a can of shit, I tried one of the workouts on the trainer today. I opted for the pedaling strength dvd and workout 1 (the easiest). All it was was a 10 minute warm up, 10 minute interval of 50-60 cadence and heart rate zone 3, then a 5 minute recovery. Repeat the interval/recovery 3 times and that is it. THAT IS IT. On the website it has a little sample video of two guys climbing, well during the 1 hour 15 minute video, I saw two guys climbing for 15 whole seconds. Other than that, it was 5 robotic riders (all men) on trainers.

For the heck of it, I played the HARD workout on fast forward when I was done riding. Well it's 20 minutes of intervals and 5 minutes rest. Repeat. I am going to guess that the MEDIUM workout is 15 minutes of interval with 5 minutes rest.

Never, ever, consider buying Optimum Fitness Results "pedaling strength" dvd. Joe Friel should be extremely embarrassed to have his name associated with such a POOR quality product. You would think with him charging clients $1,500/month for training, he could do better than this.

The only, ONLY thing that makes this rate above ZERO on my scale is the "stretching" portion of the dvd that plays immediately after the workout. There is a very good looking woman in lycra stretching.

RATING:
0.5 out of 10

The best or worst of both worlds

Today's workout was 2~30 minute Spinerval workouts. I got this DVD free with my trainer purchase. Usually, the DVD's are for when I want to ride in front of the tv, as opposed to my Real Axiom that's hooked up to my laptop. Well today I played the DVD on one monitor while riding the Real Axiom which is viewed on the laptop monitor. To make things interesting I set up the thing to ride a 1% grade. Now 1% isn't much until you compare it to 0% on the "normal" trainer. That provided a pretty good workout for the day. Bunches of 90 second intervals. It's not exactly the season for that, but what can you do?

And no, cranking down the tension on my normal trainer does not make it harder, thank you very much.

11-20-08

175.5 this morning. Yesterday was interval day. So is today. Probably tomorrow too.

11-19-08

176.0 - the excitement builds

11-18-08

177.0 Damn bagels from Panera

Bought two of these today...

http://www.endurancefilms.com/Videos/Cycling/tabid/696/ctl/Edit/mid/1859/Videos/Cycling/CyclingnbspFitnessnbspResults/tabid/916/Default.aspx


Of course, one of the two I bought promises that I will set a personal best time trial. Hot dog.

CFR4 and CFR2

11-17-08

174.0 thanks in part to my 6am spin while watching Married With Children and Saved By The Bell.

BEWARE of 'unflavored'

My hips and knees have been in a pain in, well, my hips and knees for a while now so I decided to test out some Glucosamine. Unfortunately, I am not a fan of swallowing pills that are the size of my thumb, so I opted on an unflavored powder. Should have known better. The last time I bought an unflavored product it was an endurance formula from Hammer. I used it a handful of times then gave the rest away to a team mate. That unflavored pales in comparison to this glucosamine powder. First, it smells worse than my gear bag left in my hot car after a day's worth of criteriums. I could only liken it to the scent of my dog farting in my four year old cycling shoes that have my used socks stuffed in it. Not that I've tried that, but you get my drift.

Instead of the recommended 8-12 ounces, I've opted to take it in shot form and chase it with a glass of clean water.

It better be worth it.

11-16-08 from the coffee shop

175.5 - can't win them all.

So I'm sitting here in my favorite Englewood coffee shop. Why? We have YET ANOTHER open house. That meant I spent a good chunk of the day yesterday cleaning the house. I was able to sneak in 1.5 hours on the trainer. When I get home today, it will be more trainer time. Probably do a G.D. Spinerval.

Anyone know how to build a wheel out there? My Power tap enabled American Classic is getting long in the tooth (or at the very least I have bike wheel envy and just want to replace it). Excel Sports is have a good deal right now on Zipp 404 clincher rims, but this is no undertaking I want to take on myself. I have zero knowledge on spokes so I don't know what I can use, what is good, what is bad, etc.

11-15-08

175.0

Quiet, Dobo.

11-14-08

176.0 - Too much rice last night, not enough riding (1 hour of intervals)

11-13-08

175.5

First four 'races' of 2009 scheduled

http://www.teamdaytoncycling.com/Documents/2009ITT.pdf

Four indoor time trials to kick the year off. It's probably time for a fitness check on my simulated course that's a simulation of a made up route.

Fitness check complete. Completed the course about 50 seconds faster than my best time (which was last February) and set a season high 15 minute power output. There you go.

That makes a total of 35 races (all time trials) on my schedule already for 2009. Who knows when the road race and crit schedules will start coming out?!

11-12-08

176.5

11-11-08

176.5 today
178.5 yesterday

stuff

Should we talk about the weather? Should we talk about the government?

Weather! What a great couple of days with a couple more to follow. Unfortunately, I missed riding Saturday as my whole day was booked up with a trip to the site and a party that was hosted by us. Needless to say, I didn't make it to son of Godzulla. Once again, I'll say it. I will make it next year.

Sunday and today I spent outside getting some badly needed miles in. Tuesday and Wednesday look to be more of the same.

Getting ready for 2009 started last Sunday. I keep changing my game plan in regards to training but I've settled on this for now: There will be no daily structure. When the weather starts getting bad, I'll reduce my long rides to once per week so I won't be dealing with long bouts of freezing on the road or numb ass on the trainer. The rest is all sorts of variants of intervals. Sure, when I say no daily structure, I really mean that there will be weekly structure based on time and weather. Everything from 20 second to 20 minute intervals are on deck. Gradually, I'd like to up the wattage that I'm doing the intervals at while at the same time chipping away at the weight hanging off my ass.

There are only about four more months until the season starts. Got to get with it!

With friends like these...

...I need slower friends. My last road ride was 12 days ago and since I've been mired in a funk of blah trainer rides. Schedule has not permitted much time to hit the roads lately and it showed. For a 50 mile ride, it felt like a good 38 of it was in a head wind. How does that work? I threw my best effort forward to share the workload (as I am not keen on wheelsucking freeloaders on a group ride) but I still felt like I didn't hold up my end of the ride.

At the very least, today's ride did save me some money. I know for fact that I'm not in shape enough for Son of Godzulla next week, so I'll save the drive and $40 entry fee.

Statistics - because you know you love them.
50.38 miles
2:31 (20.1 mph average and like I said it was head windy)
1867 kJ (which I promptly replaced via burrito)
207 watts, 241 normalized
Still not wearing my HRM.

In closing it was nice to actually be out there riding! I miss the road.

If money were no object.

I want to try all different kinds of bike racing. Track, cross, MTB. Unfortunately, time and money prohibit this. Track looks the coolest, but the closest place to ride is 100 miles away and they are only open for a few months per year due to the weather. And of course, at the time of the year the track is open, I am busy with racing my other bikes and I don't own a track bike. Someday, I would love to take my TT bike and ride it around a track for an hour. Cross sounds like fun, in a brutal, hard sort of way. That being said, I don't have a cross bike so I would have to buy one. Then shoes. Then a scrub brush and soap to get clean before the drive home. I do have a mountain bike, if you can call it that. It's a 100 pound steel POS with lower than low end components that I bought to ride in the snow when I lived on the farm.

For the time being, I'll just keep throwing all available bike cash toward the time trial bike.

Blog posts get real boring when you spend too much time on the trainer. It's not like I'm going to detail the horrendously boring 90 minute ride I did today. I did wear my new shoes, so there's some excitement and used the new trainer yesterday and the day before. Maybe tomorrow I'll have something to write about.

New shoes!

Excuse the picture quality - it's from my freakin' phone.

And yes, I wear my team cycling socks as everyday wear.

Tis the season

where a young man's thoughts turn to how much money he is going to spend on gear for 2009 and what the return will be...poo

The shoes I wanted FINALLY went on closeout, so I scooped those up last night from Excel.

It's time for a new "portable" trainer to take to time trials and for days when I want to ride in front of the TV. My Real Axiom is too heavy and not a great trainer unless it's plugged into my laptop. Bikesport Michigan has their secret Slowtwitch deal and I may pull the trigger on that today.


EDIT - yes I did buy the trainer. Now you know.

Soon it will be time for the annual Kit order. Champion Systems provides our gear and they came out with a new, dimpled (or roughened) skin suit. That's first on the list. On top of that, I'll be adding new shoe covers, gloves, extra jerseys and bibs and probably the long sleeve cyclocross skinsuit for the chilly days.

Then there is the front wheel issue with the time trial bike. I'll be addressing helmet concerns next spring as well as aero bar issues.

Time to get back to work to pay for all this crap.

More time trial testing

Minutiae . Leads to faster speeds?

I did two more time trial tests on Monday and Tuesday afternoons. The course was the same as last week's test where I averaged 26.6mph for the 5.6 mile course. Due to the weather being "roughly" the same, it made for a good testing experience. I posted that my speed was 26.8 earlier, but looking at it again, it turned out to be 26.6 at 272 watts.

After changing my position, I lowered my bars as blogged about previously. It closes me in a bit, but does (at least subjectively at the moment) make me more aerodynamic. The 26.6 mph test was done with this setup. Since, I have rotated my aerobars in toward each other to close the gap between my hands so they are touching. My theory is that the air can go around my hands as opposed to in between them. My subjectivity again. Monday's test had me at 26.9 at 279 watts. A little more watts and a little more speed.

Tuesday, I decided late in the afternoon to hit it one more time as I didn't have time for a long enough road bike ride to make it count. The weather was close to Monday's in regards to wind speed, direction and temperature. I shortened up my warm up to about 10 miles to make it to my starting point (Jackson & Dog Leg rd.), then hit it. In training, it's been difficult to push it as hard as in a race, as time trialling (for me) takes so much focus and effort. When training on open roads, I at least TRY to keep one eye on the traffic and that hurts my focus.

The end result was my first effort over 27mph with a speed of 27.6 for the 5.7 mile course with a wattage of 298. 298 is a real race wattage for me and surprising that I was able to get that in training.

I've kept no heart rate data in October due to some rash from my strap. I still need to wash the thing in alcohol before I wear it again.

Test 1 26.6 average 272 watts
Test 2 26.9 average 279 watts
Test 3 27.6 average 299 watts

Addendum to the training TT's.

1. No time trial clothing was used, except test 1 where I wore my long sleeve skinsuit with a normal jersey over top (to hold my cell phone in the pocket).
2. Bell Sweep helmet used for all tests
3. Rotated bars for tests 2 and 3

40,000

I started keeping track of mileage on July 29th, 2002 via a spreadsheet on my computer. With today's ride I went over the 40,000 mile mark since then. Also in the next ride or two, I will surpass 2007's mileage as I'm about 60 short. Last year I had 6,550.17 and year to date, I have 6,492.63. This year has been a good, injury (and vacation) free year, except the week in Peru. Nothing on the horizon should be keeping me from beating my 2005 mileage of 8,266.76. The only thing that could keep me from that would be the emphasis on better quality workouts over pure mileage, especially when it's dark and cold and I'm resigned to 15 minute intervals on the trainer. We'll see what happens.

Today was a nice 40 miler just cruising around my usual roads. I have to get my rides in on these roads as I won't be spending much time up here after this year. Well, that is, unless our house doesn't sell by next year. I'm going to miss these roads.

Practice runs

Friday was practice run day on the TT bike. This was the first real road test since I modified my position. I modified it even more after seeing the pictures by lowering my bars about 6mm (two spacers worth).

I went and did my usual TT practice route; North Dog Leg, East Old Springfield, North Peters, East Evanston. There wasn't wind to speak of but the effort felt pretty easy. I didn't want to push too hard, just hard enough to make it count. Ended up with a 13 minute effort at 272 watts. But the cool thing was that my average was 26.8 mph. I went and checked the weather to make sure there wasn't some sort of wind coming from the south and west. Weather.com showed a slight wind out of the south at less than 5 mph. Well, my west to east average was at the same speed as the south to north. Note: I wore no aero gear. Std Bell Sweep helmet, std jersey over top of my skinsuit and no shoe covers. I did use my race wheels.

What does that all prove? Nothing for now since there are no time trials until next March! Really it means that I felt comfortable (more comfortable than my old FIST position) in a more aerodynamic position, and could push enough watts in the new position. I have a few more weeks of decent weather to dial in as best as possible this new setup before shutting down the time trial work for the year. Then it's off to North Carolina and the wind tunnel early in 2009.

If I can start next year in the high 26's to low 27's for average, that should be enough to win several age group tt's around here. Hopefully, I can work that up to high 27's to low 28's by June. Not sure what speeds will come out of the wind tunnel...? To be continued...

Position pictures

Changed to be within UCI legality 5cm nose to BB, 72.5cm to screw on shifter
Just pedalling around 250 watts
Stopped pedaling to take a picture with leg up
Stopped pedaling to take a picture with leg down
Pedaling at 250 +/- watts with LG Rocket

Old war wound

It seems like I can go around 80-85 miles before the right knee starts acting up. Luckily, I guess, I rarely ride that far. Back in 2005, a mere month before the start of my rookie racing career, I hyper extended my right knee in spinning class. Every now and then it flares up. That happened again with 20 miles left to go at the Mum Festival century.

Sis, Angie and I started in the fog and cold and Angie had a flat about 2.5 miles in. Not a good thing to start with on an overall bad day for her. Speed wasn't a factor as I was out for mileage so we just rode at whatever pace would suit us. At the 60 mile cut off, I was happy to see them follow me on the 100 route. Unfortunately, I didn't know that neither Angie or Sis had spent much time on the bike recently until we were deep into the ride. I felt really bad for pushing them to do the hundred with me. We got to Kaiser Lake and went DOWNHILL to the food stop. They changed the route to go down and not UP the hill. Crap. Anyway, there was one more cut off at 75 miles for the century riders to go and right before that Angie was cramping bad. I decided to take the extra loop and let them ride back. Well, that was a dickhead move on my part, but I paid for that karma about 3 mile later when I blew my knee out. I limped the rest of the way back to the parking lot with a mileage of 98.40. No way was I going to ride circles around the lot just to get 100. Packed up and went home.

Note to the organizers, and how many times does this need to be said? Please put the painted TURN markers farther from the damn intersections!!!!! Some were actually IN the intersection. On a good note, there was plenty of good food at the Kaiser Lake rest stop, but nearly NONE at the first rest stop. By nearly none, I mean "very few cookies" because the 30 milers ate them before I got there. Harumph.

wine vs whine

In my second departure from the topic of cycling, I will discuss whining while enjoying a glass of wine.

Blogs are funny. Blogs are stupid. Rarely is a blog enlightening. Mainly it seems that blogs are for people to whine about (whatever). I have about 35 blogs saved as bookmarks and just spent the better part of a half hour checking each one. They are all listed under "cycling blogs" because they are all bike riders of some shape or size. One guy decided a while back to quit racing for whatever reason. That's cool, but he's turned his blog into a cry-fest about his job and the government. Complaints about how his life/job sucks and how CEO's are making too much money, etc. and how Republicans are basically the devil incarnate (blame game). People like this fucking irritate me to no end. It's like he wants to go through life with his 9-5 job, have a house, 2.5 kids, a dog and have no worries in the world. Well, guess what? People have hardships. In this day and age, it's "tough out there" for everyone. It's up to you to rise above your own personal issues, get over it and fix your problem. Problems don't get solved by whining about them. Especially on the internet.

Sorry for my whine about whining. I just don't get people who "blog" about not having a fair shake in their own life. If you are healthy enough to work and wealthy enough to afford a roof, electricity, a computer AND have the free time to write your thoughts on a damned internet web log, then your life is better than about 95% of the world's population. Suck it up, cupcake.

Good Lord, it seems that two days off the bike may be too much for me! Good thing I'm riding tomorrow. See you on the road.

Tipp City mum festival bike tour this Sunday

Link to information HERE

I'll be doing the century, probably solo unless someone wants to join. Assumed pace will be 18ish mph with cookie stops MANDATORY.

6000

Yesterday's team ride took me over the 6,000 mile mark for the year. This is the earliest I've hit that mark since 2005.

2003 - 5,183.73 miles total
2004 - 5,188.05 miles total
2005 - 6,000 on 9/8 - 8,266.76 miles total
2006 - 6,000 on 10/9 - 7,191.75 miles total
2007 - 6,000 on 11/24 - 6,550.17 miles total with surgery and a 2 week Scotland vacation thrown in.
2008 - 6,000 on 9/21

Looks to be a good year mileage wise with no vacations on the books except for a short one to go camping, but that will only be a weekend trip. Training for 2008 began on October 20, 2007. Sounds like a reasonable date to begin training for 2009 so I'm going to be quite lazy over the next month and just ride around with no ambition and play with my TT bike. The good news is that I'll finish 2008 in way better form than I ended 2007. No burnout and no long time off the bike combined with several hard group rides per week has found me in good form. Between the vacation and surgery, I was off the bike for around 5 consecutive weeks. Not this year!

Yes, we finally have internet access

I never realized how much the internet is vital to my business, not to mention my bicycle gear window shopping.

Anyway, the state road race got pushed back to October 5th. I'm scheduled to go camping that weekend, so I think the season is over officially. I've already started my off season program of core work, which is always UNfun. Pretty soon it will morph into weight lifting and early morning trainer sessions.

Good lord willing and the creek don't rise, I can keep my weight down this offseason. I set myself back last winter and shot to 180 pounds and it made a rough spring to make it down to sub-165. That being said, I was 172.5 after our sushi fest last night. Ooops.

#31 Speedy Feet time trial

A great way to end the season! Conditions were perfect and the bike path was clear so I was feeling really confident going into last night's race. On the line was $50 cash, winner take all. Since I've won all four previous races and I had the new weapons, things looked good.

Anyway, the path is east to west and there was a slight wind from the north. That made things even better because I didn't have to deal with any head winds. I started out hard and kept it up, ending in my highest 15 minute power output since I've had the powertap (311 watts). I also ended up with my fastest time trial ever, at 26.2 mph average (including the turnaround where you basically have to come to a complete stop to negotiate a 180 degree turn on the path). Now I'm $50 dollars richer and I'm taking my wife out for sushi Thursday to celebrate.

I'm still on the fence about Sunday's road race, but chances are I'll probably do it but this was basically the end of my season. Now it's time to tear the TT bike apart and set it up UCI legal.

On a side note: I've been without an internet connection since the storm, hence the lack of updates. Now I'm sitting at the coffee shop surrounded by people with laptops. Dorks! Oh wait.

#30 Colavita September TT

With the weather the way it's been the past two days, it seemed there was little hope of a dry day. When I took the dogs outside around 1:30 this morning, it looked like it just got done pouring down. Luckily when I got to Greenville, the roads were kind of dry but getting dryer, but the bad news was they were freshly fricken chip sealed three weeks ago. Chip seal + cycling = slow and bumpy.

I saw Jim Matson in the parking lot and thought "shit, I'm racing for second" as he beat me last month by over 1:30. Nutz.

Armed with my new set of tires and tubes, I started fourth on the day. About 4 miles in I passed my one and two minute men within seconds of each other. There was a little wind, but the weather said it was coming out of SSE, which was odd since I was going West and feeling it. HUH? By the time I hit the turn around I was feeling drained but looking down at my powertap showed that I had a several seconds on my normal "out" section time. Good news!

The trip back was much faster. Ah ha! The wind was coming out of the SSW - now that makes more sense. I was still feeling rough though. A combination of only 3 hours of sleep last night, chip seal and the "out" wind made me hurt more than normal. Praying at the 1 mile to go sign that I had a decent time, I looked down and gave it all I had which didn't feel like much. 301 watts to be exact for the last mile.

At the finish I was spent, but saw a new personal record! I was 26 seconds faster than the previous two months. 29:01 via power tap (29:05 official). At the registration area afterward, almost everyone I heard had stories of how their times were slower due to the chip seal.

In the end, Jim still beat me but this time by only around 30 seconds. I ended up second to him in my division and fourth overall.

Now the bad news - my stupid decision back in March and April (when I was between TT bikes) cost me a free jersey. At those two races (March was actually cancelled due to fog) I chose to race the Orca in the "standard class". For whatever stupid reason I didn't ride age group and since the requirements to repeat as Series Champion was to ride 7 of the 8 tt's I was hosed. Well I was present at all 8 but raced two in the standard class. I'm an idiot. No jersey/championship for me. I'll get it back in 2009.

To add insult to injury, in the April race had I chosen to race age group I would have gotten second place with my time. BUT NO, I got third riding standard class.

Test run

Monday and Tuesday were test runs of the new equipment on the time trial bike. Encouraging preliminary results. Training rides are much different than race day rides though and Saturday will be the real test. It appears that the same wattage gave me about another MPH and my typical MPH average had lower wattage. Then again, these test runs were not done on a race course, just my typical TT practice route. Breezy but not windy so I had to run tests in all four directions, etc. I can only imagine what people think when they see me running tests over and over (and over) on the same stretch of road when they're out mowing the lawn or something.

After the TT Saturday there is one more next Tuesday then that is it unless QCW has any more on the books that I care to drive 1.5 hours to get to (for a 10 mile TT, I doubt it). After that, more changes are going to happen. When I originally got "fit" on my bike, the "fitter" gave me a hand out with dimensions for both the FIST setup and UCI setup. Subjectively, I (wrongly) chose the FIST setup. With Master Nationals being a priority for next year, I am going to switch over to the UCI setup right after the final TT. I'm going to use the rest of September and October to "fiddle a liddle" with my position while staying within the confines of UCI legality. Depending on the results, it's one of two directions: Find another bike fitter, preferrably a big name in the business, or head to the A2WT wind tunnel. If my own testing is solid and I'm getting decent results, I'll go for the tunnel to tweak. If I am unhappy with my results, it's time to overhaul the position with a fit guru.

ROCKTOBERFEST

Whatever - should be called fat fest.

Although the beer was good (some German variety), the eyes were put on high alert. I'm kind of surprised a sink hole didn't develop. Being a former lard ass myself, I won't go hard on people, but that being said it's still not easy to see all these people cramming sugar waffles in their cake holes.

On another note for those who get excited over such things (I think that's me only), I put secret time trial weapon #2 on the bike when I got home. Monday will probably be it's first test run.

Had a good ride today - it's too bad more people didn't show up for the event but it just meant more cookies for my own personal cake hole (cookie hole). Dobo and I had a conversational 77 mile ride right at 19.0 average.

Bore ring

I think I am the most boring person on the planet. From the looks of it, I would make a perfect candidate for Vice President. My wife is gone for the weekend so what are my big plans? Bachelor parties, wine and dine social engagements, poker with the boys, college road trip, hookers and blow? No, no, no, no and hell no. It looks like I'm going to sit at home tonight and rest my knee (no, the other knee), my neck and back. I may make it out of the house to go to the grocery. Saturday I'm going to ride a bike tour and follow that up with having a couple of beers with my dad at the Oktober Fest. Sunday, we have an open house so I have to take the dogs and leave. I'll stow them at the farm while I (surprise, surprise) go ride my bike.

Secret time trial weaponry #2 may get a rollout, provided I "have the time" to install it. Colavita's last TT of the year is next Saturday, got to go out on a high note, so I need to have a couple of test runs before that.

Shill post

http://www.projectveloracing.com/waco.php

Blatant shill post for the bike tour that my team is hosting. Proceeds go to supporting youth cycling.

I'll be doing the 75 mile route, but I'm riding from my house to add a few more miles. If anyone wants to join me, leave a comment or email me. I'll be leaving from my house at 7am.

Wright Ride 2008

Due to time limitations, I opted for the 64 mile route. Hmm, 64? Oh well. I was solo and just wanted to ride my own pace, hard where I wanted and easy where I wanted. Stop often for cookies. Not really much to report but when I got back to the parking lot I had 68 miles so I turned around and did the opening hill (pinnacle point) again which is 1 mile long and back down to get near an even 70 miles for the day. 70.11 miles took me almost 4 hours. 17.9 I think was my average. Couldn't exactly go fast due to the road situation. More below.

THE GOOD

Plenty of snacks
Plenty of rest stops
Great weather
Slightly rolling terrain
Great paint on the route for the most part

THE BAD

The absolute WORST roads I have ever ridden on bar none for that length of time. Preble County must have had extra gravel for their annual chip-seal party. Many times we were riding on roads that were not there over top of gravel/dirt. Then there was the miles of chip seal. From the first rest stop on the 64 mile loop back to that same rest stop, the roads were absolute crap.

I'm not doing that ride again, which is unfortunate. You can't control the county chip sealers, but you can control (at least I'm assuming) the fact that we had to ride over roads that were shit.

Battle of the Cows TT #29

What do you do when you go 25mph and finish near the bottom? You pout of course. Holy crap! I love the course that Craig set up and I think I'll be heading back for some training rides there.

I felt like crap for the whole ride and felt like I couldn't generate a watt to save my life. Burnout is right around the corner and it's been a long season with my first time trial of 2008 being last January. That being said, I was just a shade over 25 mph for the 9.1 mile course.


Notice the sweat dripping off my nose. Yes, I was working hard. I still have yet to ever beat Vince or Todd in a time trial.

Sunday ride picture

Dobo looks as if he's chatting away with me. I'm sucking big air at that moment.

Blue Streak TT #28

Last night was my first attempt at the blue streak course. I've seen fast times, so I wanted to check it out at least once before I move. This was the last of the series for this year, but they are going to host 6 races next year.

I felt like crap most of yesterday and I have no idea why. Stresses with our building/my job/house sale are kind of building up (maybe I should be on the internet less, ya think). Weird shooting pains were hitting me all over. Suck it up cupcake and race. There are only 3 or 4 more races and this season is over.

Not knowing the protocol of being on a military facility, I kept the warm up mostly in the parking lot until I finally saw people on the road. I didn't want to do something wrong and end up in the "stockade"! The warm up was not typical of a usual time trial for this distance but felt ok throughout.

I started 17th on the day and wanted to catch Shayne who started 3 placed ahead of me. I passed around 9 or 10 riders, but no Shayne. The back stretch was brutal where I was giving it everything and holding only 21mph, but everyone was having that problem.

End result was a TIE for 9th out of 80+ riders (with Shayne) with an average of 24.7 according to the results. Never been that fast and felt like such ass. I'm discounting the guy who finished first because he was riding a missile (full aero HPV-recumbent). My powertap showed 24.4 average, but what scared me more is that I was over 190bpm for 15 minutes+. I usually TT at 180-185. No wonder I felt cooked and dead. It took about two hours for my heart rate to settle to normal, that freaked me out as my heart rate is usually in the 60bpm range just sitting around. For comparison, my heart rate right now is 54 after one cup of morning coffee. Last night it was around 100-110 for too long.

I'm not happy with a decent result when I raced and felt like crap. I'll chalk this down as the worst time trial I've ever done.

Ok, it took me a few minutes to realize what was up. I forgot that I ate a lot of mixed nuts yesterday for lunch and I have a low grade allergy to some of them. Nuts have tanked races for me before. That was dumb.

Out of my league

Ever ride above your pay grade? That's exactly what happened to me for the first time Sunday. A 100 mile, 22 climb ride was on the schedule. The last century I did was May 1, 2005 and the longest I've ridden this year was around 65 at the Strawberry festival metric tour. So going in, I was pretty nervous about being able to keep up with the climbing AND the distance. The saving grace for me was that there was regrouping after the climbs. The quicker you get up the hill, the longer the regrouping time!

I packed a boatload of generic fig newton bars and started eating them about 6 miles in and didn't stop until the ride was nearly over. That was probably the smartest thing I did. I have a problem with being able to eat while I eat due to breathing issues, but I was able to eat during the regrouping periods with no problem. It's nearly impossible for me to eat during a road race. That's bad.

As the ride continued, everything felt pretty good except for some chafe issues. Luckily, my legs were able to hold out and I felt stronger as the day went on. I do have some soreness in my already bad right knee (thank you, stupid spin class on February 1st, 2005), but I don't see it stopping me from riding today.

One thing that did bother me is my lack of confidence in descending. Due to the nature of my training rides (mostly flat stuff), I don't have the opportunity to descend often. On each downhill section, I coasted my way to the back of the pack before it started so as to not get in anyone's way. My new brakes sure got a workout, and I slid out once, but was able to keep it upright. Of course after each downhill, I had to make an effort to close the gap I made and that was often at the bottom of yet another climb. Ouch!

Anyway, it was a great ride and on the final few climbs I did pretty well and thought I was climbing out of my pay grade. I'm not a small man, and my usual "climbs" involve overpasses, but I felt pretty good going uphill being able to keep up with the stronger riders for the most part. It was a great day and I'm glad there were a bunch of us to share in the suffering.

Out of reach

Being 38 years old, I've been flirting with the idea of riding across the United States in 2010 to celebrate my oldness of 40. Now, I'm not so sure that's anything more than a pipe dream. I've been searching for touring companies that offer varieties of rides, from the carry your own gear type to the hotel and buffet type. The underlying factor is cost. Even the carry your own crap and cook your own crap rides are $4,000+! Of course, I don't even want to carry my own crap! If I do this, it's going to be hotels and buffets, but not to the tune of $8,000-$10,000. The thing that makes the cost even more of a challenge is the fact that I have no vacation days, being self employed. Every minute I don't work, I don't get paid. Even if My wife's clinic exceeds beyond all expectations, it's going to be a struggle with me netting a ZERO income for 5 weeks.

So it's become apparent that this cross country thing won't be happening until later on in life, barring winning the lottery (which I don't play).

One idea I've been thinking about is doing as many state championship time trials as I can fit in. Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Pennsylvania, etc. That will account for several weekend trips, but still be fun (in an ouch sort of way) and I see what kind of results I can rack up in my first year being a 40+ rider.

Another idea is a winter training camp. Hammer (as in Gel), along with many other companies put these on in Arizona so us snowed in mid-westerners can get some consecutive non trainer rides under our belts. Probably what would be more fun is to just rent a house in Tuscon, buy a case of pasta and have 5-10 friends go out and ride for a week.

Yet another is do as many multi-day tours as possible. Goba, Rainstorm, TOSRV, etc.

Or simply fuck it and just ride wherever I please.

That which does not kill me...

...makes me wish I were dead.

Far be it for me to call in sick, I hit the pavement with little expectation. I gave it my all, got dropped, got back on, gave it my all, got dropped, gave it everything I had (Rudy) and died. I was resurrected minutes later only to commit cycling suicide on the rollers. Then had 10 miles worth of time trial practice.

From the time I got back on with the group on Rudy until I was dropped for the final time on the rollers, the average was 24.0. That included the cow hill, the unnamed hill, the long Rudy incline THEN the roller. Ouchies.

That earned me a nice cup of coffee and a blueberry muffin here at the coffee shop.

And now I'm sitting here trying to come up with a plan to be able to do the Ramble after moving to Cincinnati. Suffering is fun.

Speedy Feet TT #27

Four for four! Even though I had to come to a complete stop on the course because of a family hogging the path, I ended up with a 24.8 average and won by 18 or so seconds over 2nd place. 295 watt average for the 17 minutes and change.

I started first, a position that most people hate. I wanted that spot because it minimized the amount of people on the course at least for the "out" section. The course being a small open bike path, I think it's important to have traffic at a minimum. The course today was lengthened to 3.6 miles out and 3.6 back, so it was about a mile longer than last month. At mile 3, I was barreling along at 28.7 mph and came upon a family of four walking the way I'm riding and the two young kids were wandering around. Crap! I yelled 'PASSING'. Luckily, they moved over but not before I had to shut it down. The wife said she was sorry, and I was able to get out a "no problem" before ramping it up again. This being an open course, I can't really get mad at people using the multi use trail as it was such a nice night out. Anyway, trying to get back up to speed in my 53x13 or whatever gear I was in, I hit my max wattage for the ride - about 930. Way too high for a time trial.

After the turn around, I saw the guy who started right behind me and it seemed like he was WAY to close, so I spent the "back" section wondering if we were starting at one minute or thirty second intervals. I was also wondering if I was going to get passed. I pushed as hard as I could and was in the red the whole way back.

There was actually more than a slight headwind coming back, confirmed by the data, as the course is flat. Maybe it's slightly downhill going out, I don't know.

Out
8:03
26.7 average
272 watt average
167 heart rate average

Back
9:20
23.1 average
313 watt average
179 heart rate average

Overall
17:23
24.8 average
295 watt average
174 heart rate average


Results

Found another event!

And it's sponsored by our team!

Waco Music Festival Bike Tour

Presented by
Project Velo Racing

Troy, OH

Saturday, September 06, 2008


http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=6847

FIAC National Championship TT #26

After not sleeping the night before due to ongoing digestive issues, I had no idea how I would feel. I knew Jim Matson would be there, but when I rolled up, I saw COBC's team van and saw Andys. He's in my age group as well and along with Jim, they both ride 2+ mph faster than I do. We were met with perfect weather with maybe just a slight "out" head wind. I rode as best I could and ended up with the EXACT same time as last month (via powertap). 29:27. After the lack of sleep I'll take it. I ended up 5th place in my division. Andys was 1st and Jim was 3rd with times in the 27 minute range.

Tuesday, I'm shooting to go four for four at the speedy feet time trial at Eastwood park.

My 'everything' hurts

After spending the weekend on the lake tubing, I got beat up. Not a way to prepare for the national TT. I took one real whipper Saturday and my neck hasn't recovered yet. Then there are my legs, which I left at home last night. After about 1 mile into the ride, I sat in and wasn't even able to put in my patented 'pull real hard on Wildcat so I can have a built in excuse for lacking a sprint on route 40' move. Sat in sucked wheel with 40.29 miles on the evening.

Today is supposed to be a TT day as I haven't been on that bike since the problem I had during the stage race. From the looks of it right now, it's going to be a wet one. Nuts.

The pickings are getting slim for events

I'm trying to put together a schedule to finish out the year and there isn't that much to be had! Post a reply if anyone knows of any events within an hour or two of Dayton.

8-9 Greenville TT
8-12 Speedy Feet TT
8-15 Yellow Springs crit
8-17 Caesars creek ride
8-20 Blue Streak
8-23 My choice of 3 events AND a wedding!
8-24 Wright Ride (who wants to join me?)
8-30 Elves & More road race
9-6 Tour de Donut which I think I can easily win if I use my TT bike and I don't puke
9-7 Hancock Hundred?
9-13 Greenville TT
9-14 Monrovia TT
9-16 Speedy Feet TT
9-21 State RR championship
9-28 Mum Festival Tour (who wants to join me?)
10-11 Son of Godzulla (which I say I will do every year yet haven't done it yet)

Cover model Rick

Saw this on the front page of our little news paper section. If anyone can get a hold of Rick to see if he wants the paper, I'll bring it next Wednesday.

To race promoters...

I'm typing this because I'm angry that I have to miss the Pur Tour this weekend. Of course, this post is written knowing that there are issues I don't know about and that are beyond my control, so it's half-hearted. On to it.

There are only so many weekends from May to September. You do the math, I'm not that bright and don't have a calendar in front of me. I start checking for races to fill my personal calendar early in the year, and update my list as more races get added. Checking Queen City Wheels website often to gather information about the Pur Tour, there was no date and information that there may not be a race this year. This was still the case maybe as soon as six to seven weeks ago. Now a while back I had to pick a weekend to head to Michigan to visit my in laws and this weekend had no races on the schedule. This was the only weekend I had available the whole summer, so I booked it. A couple weeks later, I find that the Pur Tour was now scheduled for the very weekend I am not here! Damn. I love this race for some reason. It certainly doesn't play to what little strength I have (the rise on the back side hurts x however many laps I have to do), but I still love it. Once I found out about the race date being set, it was too late to change plans. Last weekend was the important (for me) stage race and next weekend is the important (for me) Independent National Championship time trial.

That all being said, I know there are issues with putting on a race and things may have not been in place until late. Permits, volunteers, venue, conflicts with other races, etc, etc, etc, etc. Anyway, I hope it's good day with great weather for everyone. Sorry I'll miss it. Maybe next year.

********
On another note:
Constantly, I'm surfing the web for information about races. There are a few simple things I wish race coordinators would do on their websites.

-Map of the course
-Map that shows where a person could park and where registration is
-Google map link for driving direction purposes
-Toilet availability
-Water availability (gas station or whatnot)


Here is a fantastic example of a good "flyer"

Pancake stage race TT & crit #24 & 25

There was quite a bit of confusion with the results from the road race due to the cameras not working. So what the officials had to do was make up the results as best they could. End result was that I was given 9th place points along with a dozen other riders.

Sunday, I got to registration early (I know that's a huge surprise, ha) to find out that the promoter had all sorts of problems the night before. Not only did has cameras not function, but the fuse in his laptop's power supply blew and couldn't find another power brick until early Sunday morning. That led to the time trial being delayed. I didn't know my starting position or time so I wanted to sit around the registration to make sure I didn't miss my time. Usually for a 12 mile tt, I want to warm up for 45-60 minutes. After all was said and done, I had about 5 minutes before I had to wait in a LONG que at the tt start. In a perfect world, I like to get to the start of a tt with my heart rate up. Well according to my power tap, my heart rate was 65 at the start! Within 50 seconds of the start it had ramped up to 182, where it should be for time trialling.

Everything was going great. I was averaging over 26 mph and cruising along until I hit a bad bump in the road and since I "ride on the rivet", the force of the bump caused my saddle to point down at a 45 degree angle. Shit. Luckily, I didn't crash as it sure scared the hell out of me. That happened at mile 8. I tried to pry it back up, and was somewhat successful but it would slip back down. The last 4.7 miles were wasted due to this. Pry, slide, pry, slide. Those final miles were horrible and I lost a ton of time. I actually felt it more in my arms than my legs due to trying to keep myself from falling off the seat. Those final 4.7 miles were around 21.8 average, making my overall average 23.7 well below what it should have been. I still finished 5th, but could have easily finished first had there not been issues.

A couple of hours later we had our crit. The course was 8 corners, but what made it bad was that 6 of them had either pot holes, manholes, busted pavement or a combination of all the above. Due to organizational issues, I had no idea where I stood in GC, but this course wasn't one that I felt real comfortable with. So I just sat in and that's about it. We averaged 23.5 in what felt like the slowest criterium ever. Finished easily with the field.

Guess what, camera issues again and point were handed out with everyone who finished outside of the top ten getting the same points. So basically, this omnium was almost a stage race, with bonus time (in points) based on placing. with everyone else getting "same time" points. That actually worked in my favor and led to my 6th overall placing.

Overall, I felt great and I owe this course something so it's definitely going to be on the calendar next year. Although I'm upset at the flat and the saddle issue, I'm happy with how everything else worked out. I was very aggressive in the road race, did as anticipated (for 67% of it) in the tt and hung on in the crit. Mechanical issues aside, the weekend turned out great so I can't be too whiny about it.

6th overall in omnium

Due to the time trial (big surprise). Report to follow.

#23 Pancake stage race stage 1

I felt great today. My purpose was to try and tire some guys out so my team mate good get a good finish, but saving myself for a good position. At the line they added the 6 women to our race. No problem, two of them are on my team! The race was frustrating because only a handful of people wanted to work. One wheel sucker in particular sat second wheel quite a bit and would never pull through. Why sit THAT far up only to do nothing? Several times I rolled from 5-10th position up to the front and drilled it to keep the pace high. It worked somewhat as several people dropped out or dropped off from the group.

Then

40 miles into the 44 mile race, I flatted. Shit. Got picked up by sag and he drove me back to the start/finish line. I talked to the head referee and he was very fair and understanding about the whole thing. He is giving me the next place after the last place finisher. So that means I start first in the time trial tomorrow morning. The results weren't totally done when we left so I don't know exactly how many points I am behind. It will probably be too much to make up for a high GC placing. All I know is that I'm going all out in the time trial to save the weekend.

...and an ass kicking I got...

So much of my ass was kicked that it made my calves hurt. I blew both calves out on Rudy and had to find the flattest route back home due to cramping. I've just not been able to pull it together on a Wednesday ride yet - those guys ride hard!

What was cool when I passed the group going the other way (I had my glasses off) and I thought it was just one solo rider. They were pulling such a good paceline that I couldn't tell that there were five riders. Nice!

Rest week?

Due to the races and yesterday's hard 40 miler, I'm taking today, Thursday and Friday off. Of course, it's all subject to heavy revision. Wednesday's ride will be my final tune up (read: ass kicking) before the stage race this weekend. The Pancake stage race is this weekend just outside of Ft Wayne. Road race Saturday, time trial Sunday early and criterium later in the morning. It's billed as pancake flat. Nothing short of winning the time trial will do. This "stage race" is actually an omnium, where points are handed out instead of racing against the clock. That means having to sprint for placing so the races will no doubt end up with sprint finishes, with knuckleheads sprinting for 30th place. A Solo breakaway, no matter how far out front, is only worth 2 points more than the field sprint winner. That will keep the solo tries to minimum for everyone but probably me. I know I'll try it a few times. Just because.

Tour D'Burg #21 & #22

Sunday was the Tour D'Burg/State Criterium Championships in Miamisburg. The category 4 race was scheduled for 11am so I registered for that one first. Depending on how I felt after, I planned to sign up for the 35-44 race a couple of hours later.

I decided not to ride Saturday, making yet another change in plans. Well, actually I did ride about 3 miles total to the air show party and back home. But no training ride. Over the course of the last week or so, I've been feeling a little more tired every day due to cumulative fatigue.

43 official starters to the cat 4 race. At the line, they shortened it from 40 minutes to 30. The average ended up being 24.5mph over the crappy, semi technical course. We had only a couple of the patented cat 4 slowdowns. The one time it really slowed down, I rolled up to the front and took off. That lasted a lap of hanging out front before getting swallowed up. Things were going great until the last corner where two guys right in front of me locked handle bars. Amazingly, no one went down, but all speed was scrubbed for the back half of the pack, where I sadly was at the time. Rolled to the line with no sprint for 32nd place. Even though the bad placing, I'm still kind of satisfied with the finish.

The races were running late. There was supposed to be an hour break and a couple of other races between the cat 4 and masters race, and I had the suspicion that the hour break would be eliminated or shortened, therefore screwing with my rest and relaxation plans. Yep. I felt good enough after the cat 4 race to immediately register for the 35+. There was about 2 hours of rest time to suck down bottle after bottle of water in the shade (it was 94 degrees according to the local thermometer).

Was told that there were 25 starters to the 35-44 race. One team, that I've never seen before, with three riders attacked and countered early several times. Covering a couple, and trying my own thing, I lost my nut early. The group countered one too many times and I was shot out the back on the head wind back section. Spent the rest of the day in my own personal time trial hell, doing lap after lap on my own. Got passed by the 2 man break with 2 laps left and officially finished in 16th place. Not sure what happened to the 9 guys who were supposed to be behind me...? Maybe only 16 started, because I was dead last unless people dnf'd. I wouldn't blame anyone for dnf'ing on that day.

Change of ideas

Original weekend plan:

Thursday - off
Friday - drive an hour for a one hour race and drive an hour home
Saturday - 45-60 minute race in Troy at 1:50pm
Sunday - Cat 4 crit & 35+ crit

Seeing as how it's been so nice out lately, it's going to be impossible to take today off. I'll be heading out soon for a couple hour ride. Net +2 hours minimum.

Instead of the Friday race, I'm going to do the new ride. Chances are, it's going to be harder than the crit anyway! With riding to the ride and riding home I will net at least +1.5 hours for the day. Total net 3.5 hours.

Saturday is the airshow and I'll probably go for an early ride then head to the yearly party that my cousin hosts. I may end up riding to Troy to watch the masters 40+ race at 11 for the heck of it. I'll probably net at least another +1.5 hours.

Sunday I'll race.

Subtracting two races, I'll net at least five more hours on the bike and save two hours driving over the weekend. Not to mention saving $60 on race fees. I like that idea considering I'm still planning to do the Pancake stage race near Ft Wayne next weekend and the only hotel close is over 100 bucks a night.

Speedy Feet time trial #20

3 for 3! The route was extremely interesting due to river flooding. Although the water was down, there were tons of sticks and LOGS on the route. I got there early to get some extra riding in and took two practice laps over the 10k course. Luckily, after my 2nd run, Jeff the promoter cleaned the course with a snow shovel making it 1000% better for the actual race.

I felt very odd on the 'out' section. There was a head wind and I was rolling around 300 watts (about my limit for a 15 minute interval). The odd thing was that it felt extremely easy like I was floating. ? I had that sensation a couple of times when I was running a lot, I guess it's called a runner's high. Never had a cycling high. I didn't want to push it because I was going the speed I wanted at the power I wanted and was worried about blowing my nut too early. Due to the turnaround being on the tiniest section of bike path, I had to unclip, come to a complete stop and 3-point a 180 degree turn. That killed loads of time. Then I got back up to speed and had an uninteresting ride back to the finish.

I ended up first again, but only with a margin of one second. I was 7 seconds slower than last month, but with 10 more watts average. The course was 'just so slightly longer' than last month according to the power tap. Finished with my highest 15 minute wattage ever by 10 watts. That was nice.

Results:
http://www.speedy-feet.com/results/MRTTT_July15.htm

I hope to have another cycling high. Cruising around at 25mph with 300 watts and NOT feeling it was cool.

Colavita TT July #19

Leading into this time trial, I had a pretty hard week. Two races Sunday, hard ride Monday, TT practice Tuesday, Ramble on Wednesday. By Thursday I was dead, and struggled for an hour on the TT bike. On Friday I was feeling pretty good again and got out for a near three hour ride. Overall at the start of the day I felt pretty good and ready.

The weather was perfect, warm and humid. Due to me being my normal early self, I was first to start. That's fine with me in a short race. I do like having "rabbits" in long time trials, but for a 20k it's no big deal. There was just a slight headwind going out and really I couldn't have asked for better weather. My secret I alluded to a few posts ago, was whenever my speed slowed down due to a roller, I was going to stand up as opposed to trying to grind it out. I ended up doing that three times.

Last month, I ended with a time of 30:03, which beat my best time by 20 seconds. This month, I shaved another 36 seconds off my previous best with a time of 29:27 (time via powertap). I think my official time was 29:30. This month, however, my power was lower overall. I think that's due to last month's headwind.

My time was good enough for 3rd place in my age group. Jim Matson came over from Columbus and had a time in the 27's to win our division. Due to starting first, I missed the rain that some of the riders who started later had to deal with. That was nice.

Overall, I'm quite happy with my time. I still want to tweak my position and get some bike upgrades, but all that may have to wait. Well, at least the bike upgrades will have to wait!

Next up, Speedy Feet time trial this Tuesday, followed by a potential crit on Friday (in Wapakoneta), crit on Saturday (Troy Classic) and two crits next Sunday (state championship in Miamisburg). Looks like next week will be kind of hard as well.

Team Dayton Criterium Classic cat 4 #18

Going into this, I had NO idea what I was in for. I haven't finished a non-master's race in forever, which led to my downgrading to cat 4. Sunday, there looked to be 30 or more cat 4's (I can't count that high) representing several teams. All I can say is that the difference between cat 4 and cat 3, based on this one race only, is HUGE.

Cat 3 attack: One guy takes off big and several follow, working hard to get a gap, then hold the gap. When it gets caught, more take off.

Cat 4 attack from yesterday: 4 pedal strokes from the GUY ON THE FRONT, then slow down. Then the field slows down as no one wants to come around Repeat with another guy a few minutes later.

Getting tired of that, I decided to launch during one of the slowdowns, because I didn't hit the brakes and rolled right to the front. So I took off. No one followed. So I hung out for a little and decided that I'm not going to be able to hold off the group for 30 minutes and integrated back into the field. I do that two more times in the race, but each attack being a little weaker. Still no play, as it seemed completely obvious that the pack wanted a sprint field finish. After the last try, I just stayed toward the back to let the field finish come.

All in all, I was pleased with my performance, because I didn't get dropped and I was able to be aggressive. It didn't feel like that fast of a race, but my powertap showed 24.8mph average for 49 minutes.

49 minutes
20.354 miles
239 watts
266 norm
179 hr ave
24.8 mph ave

Team Dayton Criterium Classic Masters #17

The first race for me Sunday was the 35+ master's. This is the 4th year in a row I've done this race and I think the most riders there has been was 12 or so. This was no different as 7 of us toed the line. The problem was that it was 6 Team Dayton guys and ME. Dan, Todd, Pete, Craig and two guys I don't know. I figured there would be at least a couple other non Dayton guys to work with but no such luck, so my plans changed immediately. I started out right on the front and worked hard for two laps to try and knock off a couple of guys. Only was able to knock off one. Then one by one I got attacked until a gap opened up that I couldn't close with Dan and unknown rider #1 up ahead. A lap or so later Pete, Todd and Unknown #2 took off and I couldn't close that gap. A few minutes later I was able to work my way back up to unknown #2 but he wasn't interested in working more than about 10% per lap. I figured he would just sit on and sprint around me for all of 5th place at the end.

I've been in this situation before, being well out of placing and dragging someone along with me who wouldn't pull. I'm not playing "match sprint" with anyone for 5th place. I at least want to get a good workout. At least at last year's Troy Classic, the wheel sucker had the maturity to roll up next to me on the final straight to tell me he wasn't going to be a jerk and sprint around me for 20th (or whatever) place after sucking my wheel for the last 20 minutes. I appreciated that. Well, after dragging #2 around for 90% of several laps and 100% of the last two laps, he sprinted around me and "won" 5th. Good for him.

35 minutes
13.543 mi
259 watts
274 norm
hr ave 180
23.1 mph

Time to rest up for the cat 4 race 3 hours later...

4 out of 6

Four of the last six rides it rained on me. It's July, cut that shit out.

Today, I thought the rain had finished for the day, and the sun was shining as I put my kit on. It went away as soon as I hit the road. 20 minutes later, sprinkles. I'm in Vandalia, so I hit 25-A to try and motor home before the downpour. No such luck. By the time I rode past the fire station, I could barely see the fire station. Quick (SLOOOOOOW because I don't want to slide) turn onto Old Springfield to take the safer, long way home via Canal Rd. Still a downpour. Canal to Evanston back home, hey, it's easing up. Pulled into the garage, wiped the bike down, turned around to see the sun again. Eat me.

What's harder?

Geek time. I did the A race last night as there were only about 15 A's and 10 B's. Got dropped twice in 1:05. Felt really good at times, felt really bad at times. Tonight was the Ramble, as much of it as I could do (which wasn't much). What "felt" harder? Tonight was a smaller group than the crit, 5 vs 15. Tonight was also hotter and more windy and the course was more difficult, not to mention the talent level was higher. Of course, this being the back half of two hard days made things feel more difficult.

Calculating my 30 minute peak from both rides yields:
Ride Crit Ramble
time 30m 30m
dist 11.53 11.47
watts 248 252
norm 280 277
hr ave 169 173
mph 23.0 22.9

Subjectively, I felt ok after last night's race. I felt like absolute crap when I got dropped ON A FLAT SECTION tonight. Riding home was no picnic either. Speed was low but power was high as the entire trip home was into the 25+mph wind.

Hey, we got scolded by some lady tonight about where we were supposed to ride. Cute. I swear to people are lucky I wear my team jersey for almost every ride or I would be launching into tirade after tirade against them when they act like owners of the road. I was a good team member and kept my mouth shut and rode around her (as she sat idle in an intersection...?). Normally (99.9% of the time) traffic is great where I ride. Occasionally, I'll get the doofus on the cell phone that isn't paying attention, but generally, there's little problem. I don't care much about some senior citizen passing too close or someone almost turning into me, but seriously, keep your damn mouth to yourself especially when you have no idea about cycling and the law.

The good news is that it's been about two years since someone's yelled "GO LANCE" to me.

July and it's only 74 degrees?

I want my global warming back. Maybe I should shut up, at least it's dry out there.

Tonight marks only the second time this year that I'll make the Tuesday trip to Harveysburg for the training crit. I need the practice as Team Dayton has their official event Sunday and I plan to race masters in the morning and category in the afternoon. That will be my first multiple race day since a road race & TT for summer solstice last year. Tonight though, I'll be hitting the B race for the first time in years. See how it goes.

After that race, it's a quick transition back to the time trial bike for the next Greenville time trial on the 12th, then another Eastwood time trial the following Tuesday. I have a training secret in the bag for the next time trial. We'll see if it works.

It's hard to believe it's already July! I haven't done half the races that I think I should have by now. Not sure that made sense. I know what I mean though. I did tick over 4,000 miles the other day, and that puts me ahead of last year's pace and just behind the two previous years prior. It doesn't look like I'll take any vacation for the rest of the year (my whole life is a vacation anyway) and I don't think there's any surgeries looming like the one that impacted the end of the season in 2007, so it looks like a good mileage year. Maybe we'll get the global warming back in October and November. That would be nice.

I get a shiver in my bones just thinking about the weather

/obscure?


This weather has caused havoc on my training plans for the week and looks to disrupt the racing weekend. You see, I don't look forward to driving over an hour one way for a 45 minute race where there is a high probability of storm and the possibility of hail. It just doesn't do it for me.

Monday's ride was sort of a bust where my body just crapped out about 30 miles in. Left the group ride and staggered home. The time trial took more out of me than I thought.

On Tuesday I cleaned my NOISY bike and opted for a short easy ride to prepare for Wednesday's hard ride. Rode about an hour and a half, nice and easy.

WEATHER WEDNESDAY. Storm then beautiful sunshine, storm then beautiful sunshine. Dig a hole, fill it up. Put on shoes, take off shoes. I have to leave the house at 5:30 to make the 6pm group ride, well it was storming at 5:30 and of course it was beautiful just after 6. I gave up and worked late.

Thursday I was able to sneak out for about 2.5 hours in the late afternoon between emails and phone calls and ceiling contractors. Decent ride, but my mind wasn't there so I just tooled around my Vandalia, West Milton, Tipp City and Troy loop discussing politics in my head. Yuck

Won't make the group ride tonight, and that sucks because I like the Friday route. Instead, I'm going to try to get out for an early afternoon ride for a couple of hours before getting rained on (probably) at the Air Force Base tonight.

I actually did pick a race for this weekend, the Saturday Grandview course, 35+ field. At least the start time is after noon so I can watch the weather in the morning to decide if it's worth the trip. If it's looking grim, I'll just ride my usual quad-city loop. I don't care much about riding in the rain, but racing in the rain just sucks. You end up not needing a water bottle as you catch so much spray in your mouth from the racer in front of you. Double yuck.

Ok time to get back to work

#14 Ohio State TT Groveport

Well, this was the one I waited all year for. Love/hate the course and it's a great challenge. The question early on was should I register age group or category. Last year I did age group so I opted for category this time (raced category in 2006).

In 2006, the year I was doing my best time trials, I had a 23.9 average.
In 2007, I was up to 24.0
This time around I averaged 24.5, shaving around 40 seconds off last year's time.

Official time was 57:57, power tap reading 57:52. That didn't matter as the place ahead of me beat me by almost two minutes. I ended up 4th in my category out of 11. Had I raced age group, I would have finished in second and would have earned a shiny silver medal to go with the collection. Out of the near 100 racers, I was about 40th. Some really good riders out today with Paul Martin in the 49 minute range setting a new course record. Quite a few people were in the 52-53 minute range.

Although disappointed with my choosing of category, I was quite happy with my time and power output. I am worried about the power loss over the second half of the course. We had a tail wind, so my return trip was faster by 2mph but my power average was 25 less.

Now it's a shift of gears with my choice of 3 criteriums this weekend. I'm leaning toward Hyde Park Saturday. STUPIDLY, it's already an expensive race for the time - 30 minutes for $25. What yanks my chain is a $10 day of race fee tacked on. I hate preregistration due to the weather and my lifestyle. I don't know what the heck is going to happen to me by Saturday. For all I know I may end up in Brazil or something.

Speaking of the Colavita tt...#13

I did good though the results don't reflect it. I ended up with my best time ever on a perfect conditioned day. Didn't break 30 minutes, but I was close (I had 30:03, "official" time was 30:05) which knocked 20 seconds off my previous best from last May. 24.0 average.

I'll take it.

Nutz

10 pounds of crap in a 5 pound sack. State Championship is this Sunday and I'm not prepared.

Since race #13, the Colavita time trial last Saturday, I've ridden only twice. Saturday night was camping and didn't get home until very late Sunday night. Monday (my birthday) I was able to sneak in 38 miles (I turned 38) and had to immediately leave for a memorial service for a friend of mine. Tuesday I got out for an hour on the tt bike and that's been it. Yesterday was the ceremonial groundbreaking of my wife's clinic so no riding once again as I wasn't home all day. Today, it was up and out early to a client's office and now I'm home watching a contractor fix my ceiling. Good lord willing, they'll be out of here in enough time to hit the road. Friday looks to be a long day work wise, but I hope to try to get a couple hours in late. Ride to the ride, ride the ride, ride home type of thing.

Calgon take me away.......

#12 - Speedy Feet time trial

2nd win of the year in the 12th race. 24.8 mph average.

Ok, so I was the only person with a combination of a skinsuit, aero helmet, shoe covers and a time trial bike, but oh well.

The course was a little longer than last month as it was increased to a full 10k. 14 riders of varying ability showed up. I wasn't really concerned about the competition or their lack of aero gear, as I'm trying to get ready for the state TT next weekend. I'm only concerned about how I could do. Luckily, there were no issues with my ride through the bike path, though other riders did have some issues. It's a scary ride with a course that isn't closed. The turn around did suck as it was on probably the narrowest part of the path. I had to come to a complete stop to turn my bike around on the 5' wide piece of pavement. Gravel on both sides prevented a smooth turn around and I had to unclip as well.

The cool thing is that my cycling peaks software keeps track of 15 minute intervals as a standard. Last night's race was 15 minutes and one second. In that time I had an all time high 15 minute power average (in the 14 months of having a power meter). It was one watt higher than my previous best! HA

Strawberry festival bike tour

I've not done this tour since I was about 14, but I ride parts of the route quite a bit as I can hop on it within 10 miles of home. Well, the route was changed. Five of my teammates and me took to the roads and quickly found some oddities...

Problem #1 - If you change the route, take black paint and paint over the old road markers!

Half of the team goes one way, half the other at one point. Yeah, I know we didn't preview the map. Never done that, never been an issue. Like I'm going to remember some obscure right turn 15 miles in?

Problem #2 - Don't put the turn markers that close to the intersection!

I understand the importance of placing markers close to the intersections if is dangerous, but it makes no sense to have them close when you're just making a right turn in the middle of nowhere.

Problem #3 - Rest stop

The first rest stop was great. The second rest stop (just over Horse shoe bend road) for the 62 milers was the first rest stop (I assume) for the 39 milers. Most of the food was gone save for some PB&J fixin's. I paid $17 so I can eat my weight in cookies, dammit. So I ate my own Hammer Gel. Completely disappointing when you want a cookie or four. Bike tours are really the only time I inhale cookies. COOKIES

Problem #4 - Route back

Holy Crap, the busiest day of the year in the town of Troy and cyclists of all abilities are forced onto the main road to the festival. Bumper to bumper traffic for the last mile. We had to ride single file between the cars and the curb at 5mph or less to get back to the school. The woman in front of me apologized to me for being a "wimp" where it came to riding in this situation. I told her not to worry about it and she was doing great. If you're not used to riding in traffic, I could see how it would be scary. From the looks of some of the riders, I don't think they spend much time on their bikes, let alone riding them on the street. BAD ROUTE ENDING

Ride irk #1 - A couple of yahoos thought it would be fun to draft us for the final 15 miles. Normally, I would be a complete pecker head in this situation, go into time trial mode and ride away. Well, wearing my team kit, with our main sponsor and team management riding with me, I kept my mouth and legs to myself. Then one pecker gave us the "thanks for the draft" comment. Fuck you.

Start to first rest stop (with about 5 miles of easy riding to get around the 'traffic')
Time 1:26
Miles 25.44
Watts 188
Norm 218
MPH 17.8
HR AVE 147

First to Second rest stop
Time 53:28
Miles 18.87
Watts 177
Norm 208
MPH 20.0
HR AVE 157

Second rest stop to end
Time 59:21
Miles 19.28
Watts 172
Norm 195
MPH 19.6
HR AVE 160

harumph

A no group group ride last night into the wind. No one showed up so I left at 5:55 for a battle royale with the wind.
A rain soaked parade ride today. Rode to the parade, in the parade and back home in the rain. My shoes will not be dry by tomorrow.
Tomorrow better make up for this. Supposed to be sunny and 91 for the bike tour. Better be!

I need to post more pictures to pretty this thing up

Here is my old Fuji that I no longer have. Never wrecked. I wonder who on Team Dayton owns it now? The only things I still own off this bike are the pedals (now on the Transition) and the SLR saddle (which is gathering dust)


Above is the other Fuji had



Giant TCR - destroyed those wheels in two wrecks. So much for "bombproof".

Boredom leads to math

Being 9pm and tired of working for the day, I thought it would be fun (!?) to figure out how many miles my Orca has. The first ride was on August 20th, 2004 and in that time I've put 13,799 miles on it. That may not seem like that much, but in that time frame I have also had:

2 Fuji's that I was obligated to race in 2005 and 2006 (no longer have either)
1 Giant TCR (no longer own)
1 Trek 5200
1 Orbea TT bike (in pieces waiting to sell it off)
1 Specialized TT bike

The Orca has undergone several changes over the years:
1. New dérailleur hanger. Bent in training ride wreck
2. Replaced FSA K-wing (expensive) bars with aluminum (cheap) ones. Broke the K-wings in a race crash in 2007 when I endo'd over Todd Frye who wrecked in front of me.
3. Replaced stock carbon seat post with Thomson Elite post. Stock post was frozen and had to be professionally removed.
4. Many saddle changes
5. Rear Kysrium Elite replaced with American Classic Sprint 350 w/Power tap sl
6. replaced computer with Power Tap
7. New cabling, bottom bracket, bar tape, brake pads, tires, tubes and chains
8. New cassette to go with the new wheel

I think that's it. I've calculated a bunch of times to the best of my ability how much money I have wrapped up in this bike. It's not pretty. I still love riding it and I intend to ride it until it dies on me.


In 103 "career" races over the past 3.5 years, I have won $77.50. Not bad considering I spent about $25,000 in bikes, mileage, fees, hotels and food to make that happen. Sheesh.

Random coffee shop thoughts

With Americano in hand, err well, sitting on the table, I have nothing better to do than type random bullcrap at Boston Stoker for the next 45 minutes while I wait for a client to get in his office.

1. I really want an 808 front wheel. Clincher please. Not that it will make me any faster or better, but it will make my bike look cooler.

2. Weight loss. I would like to make my ass, my tt bike and my Orca lighter. I'm trying to dip back into the "high 150's" for the first time in 4 years. Currently, I'm doing nothing to make my bikes lighter. An 808 front will make the tt bike heavier, but moving the Alps front to the Orca will make it a couple of insignificant grams lighter.

3. Today looks to be a sweet day. Too bad I'm working for the bulk of it. The plan is to definitely ride tonight. If I can't get out earlier for some tt work, I'll just "ride to the ride", ride the ride and ride home.

4. Yesterday's 60 minute power was my best since I bought the powertap (April 2007) by 10 watts. FTP is almost at a respectable level. I wish I would have a power meter in 2006 when I was time trialling much faster than I am now. Soon, I need to get a couple of friends to drive behind me and video a 15 minute interval. Videoing form on the trainer is one thing, but it's more accurate representation when you're on the road.

5. I am not doing Master's Nationals. My bike is highly illegal and I don't have the desire to make it legal or throw clip ons on the Orca for one race. Instead, I'm putting my eggs in the State TT basket as well as the Independent Nationals, both of which my bike is completely legal for.

6. A bike race just wrapped up in Italy and I understand it was a good one. Good thing Americans don't care. We like our sports boring as hell. That being said, the Wings can wrap it up tonight! As I typed that, a guy next to me started talking about the Cincinnati Reds. GROAN

7. I do not like American football, baseball or basketball. Too much stoppage of play.

8. I need more coffee.

9. Our team was invited back to the Strawberry Festival parade, so I will miss the time trial. I haven't been on that course for almost two years now. We should be on television again. Good show for our sponsors. Maybe they will mention Hellard Design? Maybe not.

10. I will do the Strawberry Festival tour on Sunday. 62 miles of roads I typically ride on, but this time there will be snacks, as opposed to the usual crap I carry in my back pocket.

11. I now have more coffee.

12(!). Client called to reschedule for tomorrow. I get to work for another client out of my house today. That means I get to ride twice today!

when 24 mph for a 40k

is just good enough for 12th place, you rode against some hard men. The winner beat me by 11 minutes. I can't do math, but I think that's pretty damn fast.

''Keep your helmet hard''

I was yelled this today on my ride by some teen girl, who was riding of course, without a helmet. To many rebuttals came to mind:

'Keep your trash white'

'You're lowering my property value' (as I was less than one mile from home)

etc.

But all I said was an unenthusiastic "yeah".

With the weather looking bad down south via satellite, I skipped the training crit and rode my TT bike instead for some fun. Fun being intervals.

***
As I'm typing this, I am reminded on why I freaking hate living in a subdivision. Door to door sales! This time it was a kid selling coupons. On the farm I lived on for 10 years prior to moving here, NO ONE came to my door. That's the way I like it. Leave me alone! It wouldn't be so bad if my dogs didn't go ballistic at the sound of a doorbell.
***

Now that my train of thought is long gone...Oh, now I remember. I was going to launch into a diatribe about helmet usage. In the last 4 years I've had 3 concussions and 6 bike wrecks. You won't see me without one. Do what you want, but I'm wearing a lid and keeping it hard.

Productivity

Looking over my mileage spreadsheet, I rode more miles this week than any week since June of 2005. That week I had 3 road races and a criterium. Just one race this week (training crit), and I even took a day off Thursday. The week finished out with a 3:15 ride over flats and some rollers. I didn't go out with the intention of riding real hard until I passed by Mitch an hour in. As soon as we started riding together my wattage got a little higher. Tried to ride to Yellow Springs, but the only road that we knew to get there was closed, just past Donnelsville. Oops.

Next Sunday is my first 40k of the year in Ft Wayne. I haven't done that long of a time trial since last year's state (about 38k). What that means is that I have to get a couple of rides in on the TT bike this week for some long intervals of hurt. Haven't been on that bike since the time trial last week. There are only four weeks left until 'state', time to put out some effort and put in some quality time on that bike. The Indiana State time trial is on this same course in late July. Maybe by then I'll have my new front wheel...probably won't have it by Ohio championships.

A little more like it

I spent most of the afternoon checking accuweather.com and seeing the rain getting ready to hit any time. Then, for two whole seconds around 4:50, actual sunlight came in my window and prompted me to quit being lazy. I figured there would be at least Craig and Dobo to ride with at PECO, so I headed that way for about a 45 minute warm up via Tipp-Elizabeth, cow hill and the other hill on Rudy right before 571. After a year, I still don't know the names. I assume the "cow hill" is the hill where there are the cows in the field. That one seems obvious to me.

Anyway, I rode for almost exactly hour with the group and even though I sat on the back for nearly the whole time, I felt pretty good. Life got in the way yesterday and I couldn't ride so it was a rest day I guess. Much needed after the Monday Tuesday Wednesday drop fest.

1:00 (and 9 seconds)
192 w
240 norm
21.5 mph (including time watching a dérailleur repair)
Peak one minute power was the highest since I've been back from Peru so that's good.

Overall it was 2:05 of riding on a day where I almost pussed out and got none. 39.6 miles for a 19.3 average. Tomorrow looks to be nice and I'll have some time for an afternoon ride prior to the big game.

If I had

If I had a dime for every time I've been dropped in the last three days, I would have a shit load of dimes. Twice on Monday, 4 times at the Tuesday crit and twice last night.

Note to self: It's not smart to do a full sprint workout prior to a group ride.
Note to self 2: It's not smart to do the Wednesday ride while still getting dropped on Mondays.
Note to self 3: I will not get dropped Friday! (and no, I won't be riding solo Friday) har har

A tale of two rides...

Pre-drop and post drop. Dropped right at the 12.5 mile mark

All was going great until I took a right hand turn on to Dayton Brandt and got nailed by the wind. Everyone pulled around me and I couldn't latch back on. It felt like someone snuck a 20 pound weight in my back pocket. The weight fell off on 571, then was put back on for the Pisgah rollers. How did that happen? Anyway, it ended up being good time trial practice (as most rides I do tend to be)

The first half with tailwinds:
12.5 mi
33:28
22.4 mph
218 w
251 norm
155 hr ave

1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute and 10 minute wattage highs were all started at the 12.5 mile mark

The second half with head winds (mostly by myself as the group waited for me then dropped me again...crap)
12.3 mi
37:41
19.8 mph
237 w
256 norm
170 hr ave

Then being the complete idiot, I forgot to hit my recovery drink and woke up to unhappy legs. That should make for a fun crit tonight!

***

Where are the races this weekend??? Mid-Ohio is rescheduled for this Saturday. I was going to do it until I realized that the race is at 5 or 6 in the evening. This would interfere with my watching of the Red Wings/Pens game 1. Priorities, man. I can't find ANYTHING else closer. There are some races in north west Indiana but that's it. Nutz

TT TT TT TT TT

How can I buy 2 mph more between now and June 22nd? That's the question. My answer is to keep time trialling. Between now and the state championship there are several more time trials of varying length. The state is right around 22.5 miles so on June 1st I'm heading to Ft Wayne, Indiana for a flat 40k challenge. June 7th is the Strawberry Festival time trial. June 10th is another Speedy-Feet TT, and hopefully the flood will be gone so we can race the whole course. June 14th is another Colavita TT. QCW also hosts a 10 mile time trial every Tuesday. I doubt I'll be driving an hour and a half one way to race 10 miles, but if I find myself in Cincinnati on a Tuesday, I'll hit it up. Once I move to Cincinnati (WHENEVER THAT MAY BE!), I intend to be a fixture there. Unfortunately, there is only one more Monrovia time trial prior to the state, but it is the day before! Not going to do that one. I may hit up the June 29th edition though as I need to keep up the time trialling to prepare for the "Independent Nationals" on August 9th.

#10 Speedy Feet 5.67 mile time trial

Due to flooding, the course was only 5.67 miles. It was free so who am I to argue? Racing on a bike path wasn't as bad as I anticipated, but since it was a nice day out there were other people "rec riding" on the path. Swerving around them was kind of fun. The only hectic part was passing another rider on a blind uphill curve on a 10' wide path.

I ended up 1st overall with a time of 13:46 and a speed of 24.71 mph. I forgot to turn on my powertap (it shut off right before I started) until 45 seconds into the race. For the duration, it showed 290 watts average.

http://www.speedy-feet.com/results/May_MRTTT.htm

Link to results above...

First win of 2008.

#9 Colavita time trial May edition

May 10th was the debut of my new time trial bike. I wasn't sure going in how it was going to go due to: a) being off the bike while on vacation b) being sick for the last week and c) losing 7 pounds due to "b" in the last week.

While I didn't podium (4th place), the effort felt ok. Power was better than I would have though considering the circumstance (272 average). Finished with a time of 31:12, with an average of 23.3 mph. Overall, that's considered a success in my book.

Tonight there is another TT at Eastwood Park. No idea how long it is or how safe it's going to be (it's on a bike path!?!), but that's going to be better for me than driving to Harveysburg for the training criterium. I need to get as many time trials in before the state championship on June 22nd and really get comfortable with the bike.

Dropped is what you get when you ride sick

Due to this intestinal thing I have going on right now, I've lost 6 pounds since Saturday night and can't keep food down. For some reason, I thought it was a good idea to do a hard group ride last night. After 8 days off the bike in Peru and not being able to ride much over the weekend because of my stomach, I still thought it was a good idea. I rode the 8 miles to the start point for a warm up then stayed at the back of the group for as much of the ride as I could (about 18 of the 24 miles). Turned away early and rode home for a 2 hour ride of 36 miles or so. Sunday, all I could do was 15 miles and Saturday all I could handle was 30 minutes on the trainer due to cramping, etc. I won't go into what "etc." means at this time.

The stomach is still in knots and it's debatable whether or not if I will eat today. Then again, the first Tuesday criterium is tonight in Harveysburg, and I plan to be there.

Stupid is as stupid does and usually stupid gets dropped.