planet cross

snuck-out for a cpl hrs tonight w/andy in the Fells. had to really work the limited light, where in the hell did summer go!? legs been feeling slow on the trails so threw a race wheel and an old michelin comp s light i re-discovered in the depths of the basement on the deluxe. guess the baby has me in nesting mode, been cleaning and organizing shit all over the place - at home, work, wherevah shit needs organizing, i'm on it like vegans on soy. and out of the depths have emerged bike parts galore. in a stroke of luck been using Stans recently - which i now deem the miracle liquid - thrown-hole ridden race tires are reborn. back to tonight, was a good quick rip, some hard efforts, some chattin', hopefully just what andy needed to wake-up his legs for this wknd's shenandoah 100.

snagged bruno's '04 planet cross yesterday. it's pretty colors. just need to find some wheels, a little love in the way of cables and pads, and it's time to rock the cross scene. am a pure newbie, it'll be fun to learn something new - also never ridden anything other than campy, so need to get this puppy out on the road soon, get the shitmano shifting down. may even find a field to run around hoping on and off, but that's pretty ambitious.

3 flats = fun?

just couldn't take bring myself to take public transit this morning. rode for 2 lackluster hours w/andy on saturday, wasn't feeling it, got me kinda concerned, but really wanted to spin this morning. been riding for shorter duration / higher intensity the past couple weeks, more full days of rest, and the legs just gave-up on me saturday. this morning felt great, however, ripping my mildly ancient front tire on some glass kinda ruined the misty morning ride. by the 3rd tube i made a game of it and tried to beat how long it took to change the 2nd time (using the crappest, smallest pump on the planet). have to find fun somehow. guess it's time to finally pony-up for another conti gatorskin tire to match the rear...

jenn's due date is tomorrow, wonder when we'll meet our mini-me. my guess is between sept 2nd and the 4th. i'm betting our little guy is a procrastinator, just like his folks.

it had to happen eventually

time to re-discover why i hate the friggin' orangeline. i want to ride, it's the legs that are rebelling. traitors.

commuter-racers

on tues, was trying to work w/someone on the way to the office, rarely do i find someone going my way at that day's pace - and all the guy wanted to do was gap me, same on wed and thurs. the "commuter-racers" are out in full-force!

tuesday evening, i'm cruising-up mass ave and 4 guys go blowing past me, just normal guys w/decent road bikes and a full summer of riding under their hairy legs. my piece of crap crankbros pedal had broken-off the spindal on the way to work and was really nursing the ride, trying to keep from getting stabbed in the leg by the spindal, so i'm pretty psyched for some help getting home quick. jump on the last guy's wheel, he's working super hard, so i yell encouragement, which i presume he took as mocking becuase he he looks back, then just buries himself. when the rest of the crew sees me they all bury it, up mass ave through central sq, harvard and up. they're not the best bike handlers - and definitely don't ride in traffic that often as they're taking death-wise lines next to parked cars - then in porter sq one guy has to go sliding sideways to avoid a car, barely misses getting squished by a different car to his left, almost takes his buddy out...

then last night i'm coming-up the below bridge (took the pic on wed morning) and some random dude hears me coming and buries it to stay in front. couldn't ask for better service. i proceed to get dragged along at full-bore before splitting-off. wild. i guess getting passed by someone is worse than a kick in the junk. but, i understand, i was a commuter-racer not that long ago. long live sport!

really?

saw this interesting "emergency response vehicle" / work truck while riding to work this morning (look close at the bumper). the sexy lady sticker really brings it all together. i wonder how much that sticker / paint job cost...

sat morning ride

grabbed thom @ 730, to andy's, 3 shiny hardtails heading down the pavement towards gloucester by 830, time is short these days, got to get-down to business. another perfect day, low 80's, sunny, dry, fast, late summer conditions. these aren't necessarily hardtail-friendly trails, but we like to think they are. andy demonstrates how to use the rear tire as landing gear. and again. whoa. check it first. hit it. after that, we were just rippin', trying to hit all the good stuff and still get me home by 2p. thom showed us what effort is by scrambling-up the short steep climbs in 2-1. not quite an epic, just not enough time, but kept the tempo up and had a blast riding a ton of great technical trails. no matter where i go, this kick-you-ass, head-screwed-on-tight technical riding is by far my favorite - am damn sore the next day, but it's worth it every time.

$1.75

an oh-so-trendy coffee shop near my office sells coffee so good i've claimed the beans have been roasted on the bottoms of beautiful sun-drenched Indonesian virgins. for $1.75, and possibly a plane ticket, you too can enjoy a small cup of dark roast nirvana. scalding. black. bitter. smooth. hints of an unrecognizable fruit add the slightest touch of sweetness, balancing the impenetrable darkness of the brew. a perfect cup. yet, each time i am ringed-up, ambient techno music beating in the background, I feel ripped-off. $1.75 is simply too much for a small cup of coffee, perfect may it be. it's outrageous and i should be outraged, yet i go back time and time again for the special caffeine buzz it induces to my system. if there's a long line and i'm late to work, i'll ride-by slowly, hoping for a miracle, that the line will disappear and there'll be time to grab a cup... an hour later my legs will begin moving involuntarily, mindlessly, towards the South End Buttery, possibly in the middle of a conference call, desperate for a perfect cup... besides my wallet being considerably lighter after months of enjoying such robust flavor, the receptacle in which this amazing brew is deposited for travel is flawed. with each sip, delicate at first, then more greedily as it cools, one small drop wil slowly fall onto my rarely ironed shirt - or jersey - or desk - or handlebars. frequently, i'll reach my index finger down to the dark drop, absorbing it onto my skin, then bring it to my lips. as the bottom of each cup appears, a spattering of grounds lies quietly and the same question is posed, should they be consumed along with the lonely last sip or wasted in the trash? today, the grounds were not wasted - and my stomach thanks me for it with quiet aching. coffee is good.

picture's worth a 1000 words

this pic from last wknd's NORBA finals at Snowmass cracks me up:

Bishop looks like a 12yr-old on crack (can't really blame him) while Craig looks less than thrilled. after scoping-out all the pics on cyclingnews, i was most impressed with JHK's reaction to taking second - he seems thrilled, not disappointed one bit - class act. and how 'bout the never-grow old ned overend in 16th place!? one spot behind nice guy nick martin and almost 10 full minutes ahead of barry wicks. from nick's blog: "There are only two places that matter in the mix of the pro field, whether you are in front of "Timeless" Ned or behind Ned... The last 5 minutes I dug deeper than I can ever remember and was actually on the verge of passing out as I crossed the line. That is the look of a face that only a mother could love:"

what i really found funny was how trebon blasted bishop for whining about the Nationals race-track fast, totally non-technical wicked-lame Sonoma course, then proceeds to whine about a true mtbike course at Snowmass. trebon removed his post about how he and Wick's 1-2 in xc and stxc was a sign of the "changing of the guard" after the Snowmass race...

need a hero? i choose ned. what's crazy is that folks have been choosing ned as a hero for 25 years. inspiring stuff.

more on dr mike

talked to dr mike tonight. apparently, they're going to cut him up again next thursday at mass general. taking a nerve out of his foot (apparently he doesn't need it there!?) and slap it into his arm, giving him a 50/50 chance of feeling the fingers in his left hand in 2-3yrs, with a 50% chance of never. whoa. pretty heavy shit. all the guy wanted to do was ride his bike to work and in the process get fit, thought it wouldn't hurt his chances with this sexy lady he's into, who doesn't want that? the whole thing is poo-poo ka-ka, but he's handling it really well... and apparently, when he went down, a cpl motorcyclists saw it happen and were the ones to get an ambulance on scene, so that's a positive, as folks can be pretty wacked in this town.

hard to say/type much after that news. i'm sure it'll all go swimmingly, we got some of the best doc's in the country here in Boston, i'd rather go to mass general than most anywhere else... when i was a little, little, little kiddo, my folks packed me in the car and brought me down from schenectday, new york to the children's hospital here in beantown - and they saved my life. sometimes when i ride past there i think of my folks and how scared they must have been... other times i just hurry by...

but, right now, all i'm thinking about is mike's left hand and how they're going to do a top-notch job. he's a really, really good guy... who would ever think this sort of thing is a risk you take when you ride your bike to work!? but, it could be worse... but we never think about that, that'd be like thinking about how you could get in a car accident, or a plane crash or a whatever. the chances are so damn slim. dr mike...

DNF

Pretty much rode the couch all wk, ate a lot of chocolate covered pretzels, drank beer, did some efforts, but not too many. Wasn't sure if Sunday's race would be brilliant or terrible.

Saturday, chore-day, eventually head into the basement to poke about the bike for Sunday's Root66 race. I've heard you can use regular tires on UST rims w/Stans, never tried it, tomorrow's "c" race seems like a good time to experiment. Nokian tires are listed first on the Stans website and think, "i've got that set of NBX Lites i've never used from 2003..." Unmount the kick-ass UST Hutchinson Piranhas and begin the tedious process of mounting-up a set of non-UST tires to UST rims. 2-3 hours of turning, inspecting and about 1,000 pushes of the pump later, i've got the Nokian NBX's mounted, ditching about 150-170 grams per wheel.

Sunday, the tires have held air all night, this is gonna work! roll-out to the race w/Thom and Miriam, blue skies, light breeze, temps in the 70's, dry course, an absolutely picture perfect day for riding yer bike in the woods. Mo, Kerry, Stan (from the elite road team, riding his brother's old mtbike), Tiff, Skip are all on-hand.

Have a great start, the best of the season. Matt takes a smarter approach, drafts through the straight and snags the whole shot. Crazy-fun course. Mildly technical swooping, rolling singletrack. Banked turns, huge speed, letting it rip on the short descents and gliding or powering-up the short ascents. About 2miles into the speed-fest, as i'm coming around a banked turn, the front tire burps air big time. have to stop, re-inflate, am now pretty worried about my plan. A mile later, burps again, add even more air, hoping with ~40psi it'll stay, but now down to less than 1 CO2. Work hard for the rest of the 5.5m lap, legs feel amazing, the rest wk has done me good, almost bridge back up to Matt, see Thom (who got lost for a cpl mins on the first lap), get into the fun stuff and roll the rear tire right off the rim while also burping some air out of the front, am pretty much f'd. Can put a tube in one of the wheels, but need 2 - and need more air... i stand on the side of the trail for a cpl minutes, letting the situation sink-in.

Stan, out for a day of fun on his brother's old mtbike, stops to see if i need help, i wave him on, it's time to do the unthinkable - take the DNF. first DNF since i crashed-out of solo "world's" in '04. I came to experiment w/something new, it didn't work... will I try it again... the messageboards on the Stans site point towards this working, why didn't it work for me? not enough air pressure? not the right tires? the beads on the NBX lites seemed great for it, much better than the beads on any other tubed tire in my collection... the weight savings is significant, i'd really like for it to work, but won't try it out for the first time in a race situation again!, that's for sure...

Thom nails another 1st in SS, Mo takes 3rd. i had the crazy legs and wasted the opportunity, stupid, but there's always another race - and now a little fuel for the fire.

digger

one of my oldest friends, dr mike, has been riding to/from work on his trusty steel steed for a month or two now. he's looking fit and healthy, has done a bunch of work to his ride, gotten it down to a more managable weight, really gotten into the 45' commute. yesterday he took a major digger on a nasty steel bridge - wheels just went-out from under him, went down hard, broken elbow, couldn't feel a cpl fingers, the docs were fearing nerve damage and when he called me last night was about to go under the knife. in some ways, i feel responsible... for pushing bike commuting, for the telling of its merits... i hope that dude is ok. as a mechanical engineer who uses his hands for a living, losing the use of a cpl fingers would not be a benefit... way sucky.

as of noon, when i talked to dr mike, the docs put pins in his elbow, pin in a broken finger and re-attached the nerve that allows him to feel two fingers on his left hand. talk about a bad fall. damn.

been thinking

after reading a fellow grassroots racer's post on this whole thing w/Floyd, my first reaction was pretty negative, but it also got me thinking. it's interesting how that works, it takes reading something you don't agree with to think about your stance. here's the paragraph:

"somebody needs to stop the whining about the drugs problem in cycling, it's not a problem, it's a reality. deal with it, ride your bike. i have never finished a race and thought oh crap! with a bit of juice i could have won, or won by more. wtf? just ride, beat the guy next to you on the start line and try to beat your time if you race the same tt course all season. don't blame floyd or tyler or roberto or jan or ivan because you suck."

with a kid coming anyday now, i'm beginning to try to see things from a little tykes perspective - and the last thing i want to teach my kids is that you should do whatever it takes to win. work hard? yes. cheat? no. but it's so much more complicated than that. in cycling (and many sports) they all (elite pros) do the same things, so it's not cheating, it's doing what you have to do to compete. but, that's a pretty advanced topic to teach a kid... then i begin to think, why'd Floyd get caught if they all do it? is it really a conspiracy? am i wrong, do they not all do it? is it just a select few desperate to win? or did Floyd do the same things the night before his infamous ride he always does and they decided to make an example of him to fuel an anti-drugs agenda that will go nowhere and do nothing? who knows, and in many respects, i don't think us mere mortals will ever know the truth - and that lack of knowledge doesn't change the fact that cycling is the most beautiful sport.

in other news that's kinda-sorta related, i'm planning on racing cyclocross this season, am buying a bike off bruno, learn the ropes. cruised-over to cyclingnews to check-out some scheduling and saw this lame article by Harry Wolfson titled "an overview of cyclocross". i didn't make it past the first paragrapgh where he states: "...the Americans (who invented mountain bike racing) are no longer dominant. Europeans win almost all the races. It's not because they picked up on mountain bike racing quickly, it is because of their background in Cyclo-cross." HAHAHAHA! now that's some funny shit. Harry, it's called dope. drugs. juice. it's the same reason our track athletes dominant the europeans. in that culture, we got the good stuff - and the scandals to prove it. but thinking about mtbike racing, and how our athletes are clean, the euros aren't (so i say), makes me... sad? makes me wish for things that are impossible, that no one does anything to give themselves an edge besides train... it's a foolish wish - and i give our mtbikers so many more props for racing clean and getting whipped by the euros in penance for their honesty. that's what i believe.

but you know what? with this post, i'm done thinking about this shit! all i know is i sure love riding my bike. and my wife. and beer. and my friends. it's a pretty simple life full of simple black and white decisions - and it's good.

recovery ride?

legs have been great, kinda freaking me out, trying to take it easy. been cruising the usual recovery route along the Charles all wk.

River on the left, bumper-to-bumper traffic on the far right - don't see too many people on the bike path! and i bet most of the folks in those cars are driving less than 10-15m to get to work...

so, yesterday, it's like 85-90 degrees by 830a, a guy races by in jeans, no helmet, giving it 110%, he's coming off the saddle w/every downstroke, really going for it. i love that stuff, the efforts folks give. couple minutes later i see him on the side of the path, looking bad, pale, that push may have been his first in a while, hope it's not his last.

mid-day i got a note from fearless leader Bruno seeing if i wanted to go for a spin w/him and Lloyd down in the blue hills @ 5. been meaning to hook-up with them for a while, said fook-all and sprinted home to get the mtb. was kinda distracted, afternoon meeting to get back for, it's like 95 degrees, WHAM! taxi door flys open and i take it. bike and body are good enough to continue on, but man, can't ever let the guard down in the city. stoopid. don't blame the taxi for that one, it was all me...

few hrs later met-up w/lloyd on mass ave by chance, cruised through 'scenic' Dorchester and collect bruno and mike ramponi who was on lloyd's old deluxe ss w/a rigid fork (which he rode to 26th place in last wknd's wilderness 101)! mike led the charge on 'his' trails all day, riding hard, rippin' on the downs, shit he dropped me a cpl times descending! guy's a trip. the climbs in the blue hills are really decent, cpl 10min ones, was way solid to check that place out and ride w/some new folks who aren't afraid put the pedals down.

Harlan Price takes another 100!

Harlan dominates another 100 miler! cycling news article here. I guess he's got the series pretty much wrapped-up minus a catastrophy. Greg the leg takes 1st ss, thom-e p nabs 4th and lloyd 10th. it's pretty wild that the top 5 ss'ers are within 8 places of each other (10th - 18th overall). they got the crazy legs! tiff grabs 5th overall on her ss and skip's in the top 10. (click on the above names for their race reports).

thankfully all these hardcore freakoids were at the 101 and not the Jay!

in other, not so solid news, this thing w/Floyd ... sucks. i'd put it out of my mind w/being so focused on the jay, then ended-up talking w/my dad about it last night, got me all fired-up. i have to agree with this guy: "I give. They're all doping. Fook the lot of 'em."