Heavy Legs.

I was "pedaling squares" out there yesterday. Today will be my last hard day of riding until the race Saturday. I think it must be all the Memorial Day Weekend Party Food. Man this sucks.

Bike Jam/Kelly Cup.

Today was my first trip down to Baltimore's Annual Bike Jam/Kelly Cup event. My Wife, Daughters and I volunteered to help track set-up, which for us basically involved me getting up early to make buttermilk pancakes for the girls, out of house by 6:30am and off to B-More for posting signage around the perimeter of the course. I gotta say, the course, a 1 mile loop, looks fun to race on. Maybe next year I'll try to get in on the fun.

We watched the Cat 5/Junior/Masters 50+/Masters 40+/Women's Cat 3/4 races. Competition looked strong all around. The race announcer, though pretty good, got a kick out of picking on Cat 5 Racers. Damn we can't get a break! The kids were getting hungry so we didn't stick around for the Pro race and the Cat 3 and 4 Men's Races. I would have liked to.

Training: This last week has been hit and miss as far as training goes. We had two bad weather days so I missed out on some quality road work. Overall I was still able to do somewhere over 10 hours of riding, so all is not lost. On today's ride I felt a bit sluggish so I did a fairly easy 2hours. This week I'll start to taper after a really hard Tuesday ride. Race weekend coming up. :)

Long Weekend Ahead.

I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish everyone racing this weekend good luck and thumbs up! With Memorial Day coming, it would be nice if we could spend even a moment thinking about what this weekend is all about in the first place. To our fallen heroes a humbling thanks for your ultimate sacrifice, how could we possibly ever show enough gratitude. To everyone who's ever put on a uniform, past and present, thumbs up to you too.

Schools in Oregon must be,... something else.

"I've been in,... 57 states, I think one left to go."

Ok, if you are sitting there, aren't you gonna laugh your ass off and correct the dufus? Maybe they are so "progressive" in Oregon that they think we've already taken a few Canadian provinces. I bet even in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Kentucky most "gun clinging church goers" know how many states there are.

Now this is Bike Racing!

Sure, the Tour Day France might be bigger, but I'd bet my cast iron ISIS power jive turkey bottom bracket the pastries at the Giro are better. The smiles say it all.

The New Guy.

Tonight was my now usual Thursday night group ride and only 5 guys showed up. My guess is now that racing season is in full tilt, some guys would rather save themselves for Saturday than hammer away in the hills north of Baltimore. I have no races this weekend, well maybe Monday's Crit, so I'm ready to go.

I got my new bottom bracket installed today and it's working fine, but a few miles into the ride I couldn't shift up into my big chainring, so it was small chainring all the way for me. Better than being stuck in the 53 I guess.

Anyway, It was Pete, Eric, Fastguy on the Felt F1, new guy I never saw before and me. We ended up running into Rick about 15 miles out. He had two guys in tow, a young guy on a Felt, and an older really fit looking guy on a Raleigh Carbon bike. This young guy was FAST. I took a longish pull and when we hit this small hill, they all blew by me and dropped me. Raleigh Guy, F1 Guy and I finally caught them at the bottom of the hill and we were all together again. I figured I would try not to let that happen again so I picked up the speed and got a bit of a gap until our next regrouping spot. I looked back, and Young guy, Mike's his name, was right there. Damn, he is pretty fast I'm thinking, not even winded. Ahhhh youth I thought.

We came down Falls road to the intersection, me pulling again, made it through the green light and started up the next hill, Pete and young guy Mike got the jump on the rest of us again. Pete is a really strong hill climber so he hung on well until about halfway up the next hill just up ahead of me. Young Guy Mike started pulling away from Pete and I maintained my pace. As I came around Pete, he said "Go get'm John." That was all the inspiration I needed so I picked up the pace and blew by Young Guy Mike near the top of the next hill, and maintained pace on the flats above. Pete came around, Young Guy Mike on his wheel. I caught on.

There I was chasing down Young Guy Mike again, got around him before the next stop and waited for the regroup again. At this point I'm glad there's only one big hill left, and one tiny hill left because the speed is starting to get to me. We motored along, all together until the bottom of the big hill. Fast F1 guy said he wasn't gonna push it, I don't think anyone else was in much of a mood to push this last hill either, but oh great, there goes Young Guy Mike again, motoring up the hill. I give chase, finally catch and pass him at the top. Yowch this is fun, Ouch Ouch Pain kinda fun. Eric and Young Guy Mike come around me after the top on the flats and I can't hold their wheel, but I slowly recover and catch them again. Here we go again, pace picks up, one small hill left. The end is near. I slowly edge past Young Guy Mike on the last hill, passing a squashed Turtle in the road. Damn, people shouldn't run over turtles I think. Ride over. Downhill from here back to where we started.

Just another Thursday Night Ride. Life is good.

Protect Your Junk .

In what has to be the most highly anticipated cycling related product since butt butter soothed it's way into the peloton, in 14 days Dave Zabriskie's dznuts (pronounced deeznuts) will be coming to a bike shop and/or adult novelty store near you. The site doesn't have much information, but states that after years of research and "rigorous testing" it's almost ready.

You can look forward to a full review here on TLR soon. OK, maybe not. I really like the packaging though. Dave Z's got a good designer working over there.

Useless, Yet Curiously Addictive Info.

Since this is my blog and I can post whatever I want on it no matter how lame, I went and cut/paste a pic of something I just stumbled upon this morning over at usacycling.org. They have RANKINGS! Now, let's analyze the data and see if there's anything useful in the numbers:

Rank in your Zip Code: 1. Yay!!!! I'm the fastest Cat 5 racer in my hood. Hey, it's nice to be number 1 someplace. I'm hoping to hold onto this crown, at least until my daughter is old enough to race when she turns 13. All I can say is people must be damn slow in my neighborhood or something.

Rank in your State: 9. Hmmm, I can't believe there's only 50 Cat5 Road Racers registered in whole state of Maryland.

Rank in your Riding Age: 9. Again, but this nationwide. This must mean all the other old guys racing have kept their licenses current over the years, unlike me, and are Cat 4 or better. Would've been cool if they had computers back when I was racing for stuff like this.

Rank in your Age Range (5 Years): 31. See Above.

Rank in your Age Range (10 Years): 53. See Above.

Overall Rank: 161. I've got nothing left to squeeze out of the numbers. There are about 2000 Cat5 Riders listed in the USA. At least I'm not at the bottom there. Hmm, I was ranked 167 earlier. Guys must have done really poorly last night, or got upgraded. Whoo!

Oh yes, I'm gonna be checking that page often from now on, especially after races I don't get blown off the back.

Anyone Watching the Giro?

Great Stuff. Open this in your media player of choice. I use quicktime on my mac.

Not In English but who cares?

Tonight's Ride.

I've been focusing on keeping focus lately, probably too much actually, but tonight's ride was a good example.

Since there's no race for me next weekend, I'll be working instead, this is supposed to be a hard week of riding. Today I did 60 miles with some hills and sorta fast. It was a real drag to do the whole ride and not take a short cut home. I'm in severe need of inspiration at the moment. Bah, One day at a time, One day at a time. :)