Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Americuhr F*#k yeah

All my depression over dopers in the pro peleton has been offset a bit by my excitement for team slipstream. http://www.velonews.com/news/fea/13706.0.html I hope they're different and have some good results this year.

Also, looks like Gunn Rita Dahle-Flesja or whatever her name is, is over her stomach virus infection thing. Color me skeptical, but everytime I hear of a cyclist getting a viral infection I immediately suspect they got it from doping. I don't even know if the two share a relationship of any sort but that's just my suspesion.

p.s.

why does my yoplait always spit yogurt on me when I peel open the little foil lid?

Sunday, November 11, 2007

pleasant surprise

I got in a beautiful 60 mile group ride around lexington this morning. I'm kind of surprised I could still manage 60 miles. About 30 miles into the ride we were cruising along and a squirrel came out of nowhere, plowed straight into my front tire, bounced off and then scurried on across the road. It was a little scary, if I would have ran over it then I may have taken a spill. I'm excited that there is such good routes around Lexington, no hills to speak of, but plenty of rolling horse farm country. If only I could remember where the hell we went today. The ride captain Alec, said they work it up to a century by Feb. or so. Too bad there isn't anywhere to ride a mountain bike around here.

Friday, November 09, 2007

i know ya miss me

I just watched The Flying Scotsman. I thought it was really good. If you haven't seen it check it out, I think it is even suitable for non-cycling-enthusiast viewers because its about the triumph of the human spirit.

I'm looking forward to a long road ride on Sunday around Lexington. I haven't done more that 25 miles since July. I hope I can still make it. Lately I mainly just ride my bike to school (5 miles to campus) and try to get out for a 20 miler or a bit more once a week. I get so stressed about school and find it hard to get myself away from the computer and books for 2 hours but the dumb thing is, if I wouldn't waste time taking breaks watching stupid t.v. shows (big fan of I luv New York) or trying to find nekid girls on the internet I would have plenty of time to take a 2 hour break for a bike ride.

I'm hoping to be a little less stressed about school next semester and ride a little more so that I can be back in shape by july or so to do some racing. Although July and August are probably my least favorite months to race.

On a side note, I've had this weird pain in my gut around my belly-button since monday. It feels like I have a huge fart that just won't come out. Wed. night it got so bad I was on the verge of convincing myself it was appendicitis but now that it has started to back off I'm hoping it will just go away and leave me alone. I'm one of those lucky people that don't have health insurance now that I am a full time student and only work about 12 hours a week.

Hope you're all doing well and if you missed the USGP cyclocross race in Louisville then you missed something special. It was an awesome event to watch. I'm sure I might have even gotten some goose pimples if I had been competing and there had been that may people cheering for me.

Ya'll take care (lexington living has gotten me in touch with my redneck upbringing)

Thursday, November 01, 2007

USGP - the good, the bad, and its gonna get ugly

Driving out to grab some Indian buffett at Shalimar friday morning (curry=speed, really) when I saw the SRAM Volvos motoring down the hiway towards Champions Park. Thats when it all kinda hit me; we're having a fer-real national event right here. Awesome.

Friday. The course was open for pre-riding for one hour only. As I rolled into the lot, I got chills, it was an atmosphere like you find at mtb nats, and all these people gathered on our local practice course. So 3 dry laps (as dry as it gets after having 7 inches of rain mid-week) gave way to the sky lettin loose for one last little shower for 3 slimy turns around. It was good to see Treefarm again who hadnt had the privelege of beating me for a couple years, we used to do it on a monthly basis, and I missed the reminder of why I am "local pro" only.

Sat. Got to the race plenty early to watch the masters 35+ race. It was fun rollin around visiting and looking at some of the bling from SRAM, Cannondale and Mavic. But, that wasnt goal 1, I could do more of that tomorrow, I needed to get ready to race. After having to DNF the last 2 CX races due to lung issues, I had no idea how it was going to go. This was hardly the prep I was hoping for for the biggest CX race I have ever done, and being right in my backyard, I wanted to represent well.

My race was a who's who of the fastest guys in the country plus the starting field was in the 80-90 range. Shoot. Man, this was gonna be painful. I started around the 5th row, about 2/3 the way back, not too bad. The gun went off and I had a great start, seemingly just sliding up the inside taking spots by the handful. Then, once again, I got pinned right behind a crash, the first transition onto pavement took a few guys down leaving me no place to go. So I spent the next few laps chasing hard, making small goals of catching different riders and picking off as many as I could. Having someone shouting my name seemingly every 20 feet helped spur me on as well, a little hometown advantage I guess. Working up to around 35th was about as much horsepower as I could muster and rode with a group of 2-4 guys for the next few laps.

The last two laps, my back started to really hurt and legs started cramping up, given my lack of CX racing in the run-up to this race, I was givin my muscles a bit more than they were ready for. I started getting passed and just couldnt muster the energy to kill myself for a few spots up the pack-fill ladder.

Oh well, in the end I was happy to not get lapped and felt like I rode a decent race, all things considered.


Gritty, determined, focused...


and in pain, much pain

USGP Day 2

Some a-hole broke into the back gate of the 3rd street compound and stole my barely one month old Redline. I dont think I need to really say much about my feelings on this matter. Suck.