2011 Ride #2: A Windtrainer to no where

Damn rain put a kink in my hopes of getting in a couple hours on the road bike.  Hit the Wind trainer for an hour of steady state(195 watts avg).  Passed the time watching Letters from Iwo Jima.  I put The Pacific on my BlackBerry the other day and have been on a WWII kick.  Its unimaginable how tough the Marines in the Pacific theater of war were.  

Once I finish watching Letters from Iwo Jima I'd cue up Flags of Our Fathers but of course the streaming only NetFlix doesn't have it available for streaming.  I'm starting to think the steaming only NetFlix is only good for seasons of TV shows & documentaries.  About 90% of the stuff I want to watch is DVD only which you can't get with a streaming only package.  Hopefully it will improve some once the CBS/NetFlix deal kicks in.

Back to work Friday night for another 6 day stretch so just commuting miles for me.  Got in 5 of the 6 days last week.

How to make an F1 Car & other musings

HMMM I have access to an autoclave about that size at work. Need to figure out where to lay my hands on some carbon fiber fabric.

FYI The Haynes manual is real. Its a promotional book , but supposedly has some basics of have to work on the RB1. Going to be out in the spring early summer. Going to have to get one.

Sucks the Bahrain GP is cancelled but it was the right thing to do. Back to the old season opener In Melbourne. A race that is in trouble itself. The Melbourne council is tired of sinking money into the race so they don't want to renew the contract when it ends in 2015. I imagine in the next few years there will be several GP's going the way of the dodo.

All this unrest in the Arab nations could bring on another global recession. I saw on the news expect $4/gal by summer & $5/gal by end of summer. That just adds more reasons for me to get CX races going here in Springfield. Its going to be hard to justify a big outlay of gas money to drive to KC or the STL for 40-60 min of racing(at least for me anyway).  I've already stopped driving to work.  A few of the production supervisors were giving me crap about riding to work the other day.  I told them to laugh it up now because I'll be laughing at their fat asses when gas is $5/gal.

Anyway I got of topic there for a second. With oil going up its going to hit my job pretty hard since rubber is petroleum dependent. Expect bike tires & tubes to go up as well becasue of this. Better stock up on them now. I read on article on Velonews the other day about aging tubulars.  Makes me wish my house had a basement.  How I bought a house without a basement is beyond me.

Talking F1 & Commuting

The above video is pretty cool since its all different camera views than you get during practice & races. The angle looking back from the front of the car really shows the graining in the tires. The new Pirelli tires are really going to spice things up this year. More so than KERS & the movable rear wing. Everything I've been reading about the tires from driver comments is how fast the super fast go off. We could see 3 & 4 stop races. That should make some interesting tire strategies. Car wise I think Alonso is going to be hard to beat. Ferrari has put in some serious test mileage this winter. They also have been a lot more reliable. Though I think Red Bull has been playing possum. Sauber & my boy Kobayashi have been looking good, regularly near the top of the time sheets during testing. I think the passing opportunities that the tires, KERS, & the wing will suit his style.

Enough F1 now to the real reason the 6 people who still read this blog...me. I've started riding to work again. Gas hit the magic $3 mark. Having a dedicated commuter is nice. Though it has some tweaking needed. But that is half the fun of bikes. So far this week I ridden in warm high 60's, 30mph winds, rain, & sub 20f weather. Missouri is fun.

I'm also coffee free now for 5 days & counting. Coffee free not caffeine free. I've had a few sodas(not normal for me) & some tea, ice & hot; yes hot. I guess its the English in me. Not bad if you get the good stuff ie PG Tips. I've had some stomach problems lately that have been very ulcer like. I wanted to eliminate a big possibility before heading to the Dr. I drink ALOT of coffee, like 1-3 pots a day. The upside is It looks like I'm homing in on the culprit.

Work is still sucking the life out of me & the fam with all the OT. Looks like at least 3 more weeks of 72 hr weeks. With the possibility of of a month straight with NO days off. Pray to whoever you pray to that that doesn't happen. Mostly for Ambers sake. I can do it but I'm not sure she can. If that happens I'll have to burn some vacation time to get a few days off. Hopefully though the OT ends in 3 weeks.

2011 Ride #1

2/16/11 Yep I waited 46 days into 2011 to get my first ride of the year in.  I haven't even gotten out for a run since Jan 9!

Why you ask?  My work mostly, & the attempt to see the family as much as I can on my very few days off in the last 30+ days.  Its hard to justify going out for an hour or more to workout when you either are at work or asleep. Unfortunately this cycle of work, work, & more work has no immediate end insight.  The night shift opposite me had one guy take a month leave of absence.  The day he came back another guy on that shift quit.  The coverage for that shift falls to me and another guy.  Lots of 5 & 6 days in a row.  Doesn't seem like much?  Try working 12 hr night shifts & you'll have a change of heart.  By the time I get to work & get home I've been gone almost 14 hrs.  Doesn't leave much time for anything else.

I have been trying to compensate by doing my version of Crossfit... Workfit.  Lots of stair walking, pull ups, dips, hefting around heavy crap at work.  It seems to have worked because I didn't die riding yesterday.

With temps to be in the mid 60's there was no way I couldn't ride.  Especially after last weeks -12.

There are still piles of snow around but a pretty nice day.  Rode my favorite 2 hr loop north of the house.  The county has decided to enforce this bridge closing with more than signs now.  Huge piles of dirt requires a quick dismount now.

Had another wait for this HUGE train.  Allowed me time to catch up with Twitter & change my listening selection from F1B podcast to some Modest Mouse to get me home.

Nothing special about the ride.  All little ring.  I averaged a whopping 148 watts for Just shy of 2 hrs. My ass is sore as hell today.  Imagine that with almost zero saddle time since who knows when.

Team Lotus F1 vid

I'm not really a Lotus fan but they do an excellent job of embracing social media to engage the fans.  Their YouTube channel has some really good videos.  This is the 2011 kickoff film.

I wanted Katie to win

Katie did great at world's. Like Dave says in this clip its hard to be upset with 2nd.  Let's face it, Katie deserved it.  Vos just had the better day.  You can only control so much.  

This vid is hard to watch, but it makes me a bigger Katie fan.  She's human.


Velonews interview with Katie Compton from Matt Haughey on Vimeo.