West Bound & Down

Taking off work early tomorrow since I have myself a series pass for all 3 days of Tulsa Tough. Hopefully this year will be less eventful/stressful than last & won't end in an ER visit. New tires hopefully will show on the door step before I leave (supposed to have been her two days ago!)

Little leery of 3 straight days of racing. Not been recovering as fast this year & so not sure how my legs will respond from 3 days of racing. Will be cool to look at the Power Files since this is the first race I'll have multiple years to look at. Also big fields & the first crits, for me, of the season(always scary). Plus Only have 2 days of Slimen Hot weather gear to race in might have to rent myself out for the third day.

Saw Floyd's name in the start list. As the B town Reject says "He is just another fodder in the pack these days". I don't care he still won the Tour & I'd rather see him race than the Lance(real pack fodder).

I'll try & update some more. Busy as hell these days. If nothing else I'll be sure to give my review of the Giro. Pate Rulz by the way! The Great White Hype is still a douche. Claims hill records but gets dropped like a freaking hot potatoe on a Cat 2 climb...douche.

"14:06 CEST
Not to be worn out chasing all day, Rabobank placed two men in the move - Mauricio Ardila and Maarten Tjallingii. Serramenti also had two - Scarponi, our stage 6 winner, and Francesco De Bonis.

A total of 20 riders made up the breakaway.

14:09 CEST
However, Danielson and Wiggins were dropped on the first classified climb of the day, the category 2 Monte delle Cesane, making it 18 men out front."

I don't care if Wiggins is a Brit he's now a douche too. He could loose that staus with the coolest shoes on the planet though.

The Blue Trail can Kiss My Ass!

Syllamo's Revenge, I'll explain later. The short is 4 crashes(Ents), two flats(@ the same time), lost count of the number of Sticks I had to pull out of my wheels, & about 3-4 miles walked...Damn Blue Trail! 6 hours 42 minutes, longest saddle time ever.

With this wind it must be Kansas?

Holy Crap I thought the SPR had been picked up & plopped down in Kansas. 20-25mph winds with gusts to 35+. Normal everyday winds for KS, suckfest for me. I did use the block headwind from the West to get in a 20 min FTP test, identical to the ramp test results(actually thought it might be lower). No wonder Tilford is so damn strong after fighting winds like that for 90 years.

Good ride all in all except for the 45 minutes or so when the sun went into hiding & I would have killed for my vest or a section of newspaper(your not wicked old school if you have to ask what its for). Halltown, Lawrenceburg, BFE dirt road near Comet to make TK happy. Actually the dirt road was the highlight of the ride. Ripping downhill with a tail wind on 23's equals big shit eating grin. Then over to Phenix, down to just east of Ash Grove, to Center(wind damage to the church), back side of Bois D'Arc via Mountain Lion Conservation Area, then Elwood & home. All that for 107 kilometers, wind made it seem farther. Actually topped out not far from the southern arm of Stockton lake. Never ridden all the way up to it might have to do that in the near future.

Sunday part 2

Had a hard tempo day on tap for the day's ride. Put the Kenda Kwik 700x30C for some Frisco Trail Wattage time. Soft conditions, a strong wind & a rear tire that was going soft(found this out when I about stack it in a turn) saw me go mushroom cloud at the end. I'm now averaging about a flat a week for 2009.


Wish I could have seen the wall of water that deposited the limbs up there. That's about 10 feet of the water surface.

Knobbies part Deux...psssssttttt!

Two days in a row on the MTB. Got out after work. Put my headlamp in my pocket just in case it got dark on me. Last year Amber & I got a new water proof/impact resistant camera to replace the one that didn't survive the trip to the Dave show. Its nice since you can throw it your pocket & forget about it. That means more pictures.

It got dark on me because its not a ride @ Sac without the beloved thorn. Front tire this time. Cheap tubes are going on the shelf & Conti's are being ordered this AM. Conti's tubes have better rubber & removable valve stems so you can put Stan's in them. In the winter I always stick a vest in my pocket just in case. Once the sun went down in got really cold in a hurry even with the insulated skin suit on. The vest made the trip back to the car bearable.

BRRRR! Found out the head lamp needs new batteries as well.

A little tuning & the R7 is damn plush. Reading is a valuable skill.

Friday at work I fixed a problem on a machine that had been going on for over two years. According to the operator 5 different maintenance guys have tried unsuccessfully to fix it. It took some head scratching & a lot of beating my head against the side of the machine. Give a guy a print, a meter & a little common sense & you can fix anything.

Not my actual opponent but the same model. Did I mention the manual is in Japanese not English?

Knobbies

I finally broke down & pulled the semi slicks off the MTB & put on some real knobbies. Thanks to a "flextime" like system I was able to bail early Thursday to get in some dirt/mud time in just shorts & a jersey in January!!

Sometimes you have to like Global Warming.

It wouldn't be a ride @ Sac without a flat. Took about 45 minutes. Sections are pretty muddy so its easy to pick up the beloved thorn.

After a good couple of hours. Its a start on my build up to the Bone Bender. Hopefully I can get on the MTB once or twice a week before March. I guess trail conditions will dictate that.

The knobbies(we'll call them that for now since I have several sets to try before determining what I'll stick with)worked pretty good. Great for the dry loose conditions, but sucked in the mud. Clogged too easily. Its been a long time since I've been on a really good MTB & the Kona is F.U.N.! to ride. I would bet in a short track it would be incredible, though way to fast for me. I need to sit down with the R7 manual & learn a little more about it to get it dialed better. I bottomed it out a few too many times. Just my current lack of knowledge on "modern" MTB technology.


Mia is at Nanny & Granddad's house this weekend so its a mommy & daddy weekend! Plus I get a chance to hang out with my two wheel BFF(Amber's word's).

When life kicks you in the nutz....

go mountain biking. I think that might become my new motto.

An hour worth of the above is worth more than a whole bottle of anything a shrink can prescribe you. At one point I was singing Xmas carols I was having so much fun. My back is F'd though today. Turns out when you get to my age you can only switch back & forth between 2 bikes not 3, especially one you haven't ridden in about 6 months. For you overly observant readers yes that is a flat rear & yes those were the WRONG tires for the conditions at Sac. I didn't feel like swapping them out. That is also a 400mm seatpost! Holy Treefarm. I figured its a Kona why not.


Mia is now designing her own clothes.

Since I'll probably be a no show at Natz I'm practicing my viewing by reading about the USGP final in Portland via the live feed. CXMag is doing it for Natz as well.