Bread, Circuses

If you've never tried to make bread, this is the season to man up and give it a shot. You are spending some time on the bike in the cold, and when you get back to your wattage cottage, you want something hearty to eat. Or you're sitting at your desk, it's a little chilly in the office, and you mistakenly think that you need more calories, you want something more filling and hearty so you don't feel like you need to hit the vending machine at 3:00 PM. Or you are trying to diet and you want a low glycemic index alternative to Wonder Bread with which to make your lettuce and sprout sandwiches.

Fear not, I have the solution. You can make a really hearty whole wheat bread at home. If you're efficient in the kitchen - or at least halfway energetic - you can mix the stuff up in about 20 minutes, come back in an hour or so and knead it, then come back in an hour or two and bake it. Yes, it's easily done in between running some errands and hitting the trainer for a 60 - 90 minute sessions.

The supplies:

Whole wheat flour
All purpose flour (get the unbleached kind, it's better for you)
A packet of dried yeast
Butter
Molasses
Honey
Steel Cut (not rolled) Oats
Salt - optional

Vegetable oil or any other oil that holds up to heating without giving a strong flavor or odor (canola, etc).

Other optional goodies -
Flax seed
Crushed walnuts
Raisins
Pack of fresh dill weed from the store
Carraway seeds
Green onions
2 Finely chopped peeled & de-seeded granny smith apples.
Whatever your little heart desires to stick in the bread.

The largest non-stick bread pan you can get.

You can get all that stuff at Giant or Safeway, though the best deal on Steel Cut Oats is at Trader Joes.

Directions

Put a cup of steel cut oats in a large mixing bowl.
Put in a tablespoon of butter.
Add up to a quarter cup of molasses
Add a pinch of salt (optional)
Add a tablespoon or two of honey, and a comparable amount of brown sugar. (It's low glycemic, not sugar-free)
Pour a cup of boiling water over the ingredients in the bowl.

While that is cooling, pour a packet of dried yeast into a coffee cup. Stir in a half cup of lukewarm water. What's lukewarm? Warm out of the tap, nice feeling on your hands, not hot enough to burn. Once the water is stirred in, the yeast - living organisms - will come out of dormancy and start to foam up.

When the stuff in the mixing bowl has cooled to lukewarm, stir in all the yeast mixture. If you are adding walnuts, raisins, dill, caraway seeds, green onions or flax seeds, or other lumpy dry bits, add them now.

Stir in a cup of all purpose flour, and a cup of whole wheat. Stir vigorously, mixing thoroughly is key to getting the bread to rise evenly.

Add another cup of all purpose flour annd another cup of whole wheat flour. The mixture should start to thicken.

Keep adding flour 1/4 to 1/2 cup at a time, until the mixture turns doughy. It will get really hard to keep mixing.

At this point, stop mixing and throw a good sized pile of flour - any kind - on a large cutting board or other flat smooth surface. Drop the dough onto it, getting all the scraps out of the bowl.

The dough will be very sticky. Dust some flour on the top, and start rolling it and folding it so that the dough on top and on the board gets absorbed in. Keep a generous dusting of flour on the board, and as you fold the dough over and a wet surface is exposed, drop that surface on the flour and keep folding the dough over.

You've worked in enough flour when the dough starts to be resilient, when it starts to gently pull back into position after you press it down a bit.

Clean out your big mixing bowl, lightly coat the inside with oil, roll the dough into a ball, then put it back into the bowl and let it rise until it grows to roughly twice its original size.

(This will take an hour or two. Hit the trainer. Go out and buy the latest Velo News and an 11 speed Campy Cassette from the LBS).

When the dough has doubled in size, drop it onto the cutting board and knead it. Don't fold it over constantly, you'll only put seams in the bread that make it crack later - this is a pretty dense bread. Just mash it down a bit, then mush it into a ball shape by squeezing the edges inward. Do this for about 5 minutes until the bread is back to its original size.

Lightly oil your large breadpan, and put the dough in it, careful to push the dough down so it is flat topped in the pan.

Let the dough rise until it's peaking well over the top of the pan. Not too high, or you'll get these huge muffn tops that aren't good for cutting. But an inch or two over the top edge of the pan is fine. This should take one to two hours, depending on the temp in your house.

Preheat the oven well, to 375.

When the dough is risen and the oven hot, slide the bread in on a middle rack. Cook for 40 - 43 minutes for moister bread, 45-46 for dryer, grainier bread with more of a crust.

I've found that this bread sliced to 3/8 inch or just thinner makes a great sandwich bread or toast, and just one piece sliced to an inch makes a pretty good breakfast on its own, with maybe a piece of fruit and coffee. It is wool sweater hearty.

Additional notes - dill plus green onions or carraway seeds is a nice combination. Walnuts plus raisins is another. But you aren't limited by my list - I suspect quartered garlic cloves would give it a nice flavor too. You can also use more whole wheat flour and less all-purpose flour if you want. I find the whole wheat flour is pretty glutenous, it makes the bread stickier and denser, you can lighten it up a little if you want, and the unbleached all purpose flour helps you keep the nutritional value. Add some melted butter to the crust if you want it to bake up crustier, and add an egg if you're having trouble getting your loaf with lots of solid stuff - flax seed, walnuts, raisins, etc - falling apart. Try to not bang around too much while the bread dough is rising or if it's cooking. I haven't ever seen a loaf of this type drop, but I suppose it's possible.

So there ya go kids. Super healthy bread, a fun little kitchen project you can do with a friend, and overall a way to spoil yourself that actually enhances your health. Yep, I left out the best part, which is that the smell of the bread cooking is ridiculously lovely, and possibly the best taste in the world is a little bit of butter spread on bread fresh out of your own oven.

If you try it, let me know how it goes. I've been using this recipe for over a year now, and it gets easier to make and more convenient over time. My kid - turning 5 in a month - actually prefers this kind of bread to white bread. Amazing.

Thank Goatonapole, It's Friday

Bike Tricks to Pull the Chicks #254:
'Cuz Chicks Dig a Guy on Crutches

---------------------------------------------

Breaking News: The Religion of Goatonapole, which I've discussed elsewhere,

There is a goat and a pole. The goat is on the pole.
Goatonapole. Amen.

Has Been Challenged by a new upstart sect comprised of feline heretics:

Catonabike

There's no telling if Catonabike will launch crusades against Goatonapole, or if Goatonapole will launch a counter-reformation via its small sect of insanely dedicated fanatics, the Wu-tang Jesuits of the Goatonapole cosmology,

Monkey on a Stick

H/t for the cat, the Ayatollahs of Bummer Life Avoidance.

---------------------------------------------

Why I think Italians have some things in life figured out, stone cold.

Police Lamborghini

---------------------------------------------

Check out Jeremiah Bishop's blog, fill out a survey about whether you ride with sound, send it in, maybe win some swag.

I don't see how you can lose here.

-------------------------------------

Have a nice weekend friends. See you at Rockburn Cross definitely, and possibly at Fairhill on Saturday.

Eastern Standard Time

Thank goodness we're going over to Eastern Standard Time soon. That extra hour of hot afternoon sunlight can't be helping Teh Glerbal Warmening problem. Don't believe me? I read the below in a newspaper, so it must be true:

Rockburn Cross

Are you going to rock the Rockburn Cross this year, which is going down this Sunday outside of Ellicott City? You should, it's a great event and it's part of this year's MABRAcross Series.

You like that thing with the punctuation of MABRAcross? How it's MABRAcross and not MABRACROSS or MABRACross or something like that? Yeah. I'm getting wild here with the freeform puncutation. 'Cuz that's how I roll. You ought to see what happens when I set the computer to use non-ISO standard fonts. We're talking craziness.

Anyhow, Rockburn Cross is a really good event hosted by our friends with LSV, and some other people we're friends with. The fields are filling up quite a nicely (78 in the Cat IV's!) and it promises to be another throwdown on a classic cross course that has hills, gravel, fields, mud, a sand pit, and a huge playground where the kids can hang out while you race. Aside from the usual reasons to go race, the course is the attraction here - it isn't super technical but does offer a huge amount of variety in the terrain you cover, with fairly long laps. That makes it interesting, even when your brain is swimming in lactic acid and your breakfast is asking you to let it out a little early, through the front door.

Register for it here.

See you there.

I'm Rich!!!!

Hmmm... I didn't plan to write this in the wake of yesterday's discussion of no free lunches, but I came across these videos today while reading, and got a kick out of them; they seem relevant to that.

I had heard that the tax hike that's going to pay for all the sweet new benefits we're about to get (the free health care and free college education and mortgage bailouts and whatnot) is going to be paid for by a big tax hike on the rich. I was down with that when the rich people were defined as $250k household income. I spend reasonably freely on bike stuff, or used to until my wife's job disappeared recently, like secondary mortgage market profits, gone without a trace. So I could use a fat tax credit.

But it looks like "rich" has been defined down and it's getting dangerously near to the unglamorous economic suburb I inhabit. First the one guy said rich is $200k. The other guy then said the rich - the people who are subject to tax hikes - are households making $150k. This is getting into my neighborhood, especially if my wife gets herself back to work anytime soon. I suspect we will eventually determine that anybody with household income of $60k or so - around 60th percentile nationally - is rich and in for a substantial tax hike; if you really want to have lots of programs you need to maximize revenue to pay for it, and you probably can't do that by ignoring taxpayers outside the top 3-5%. I'm considering doing an over/under bet on this. The hike is coming. Both candidates have promised nationalized health care and assorted other benefits, they just go about it in different ways. They haven't really discussed how they're going to pay for it, though the one guy is promising across-the-board tax cuts, which doesn't really answer the free lunch question. Somebody has to pay for all that free health care, and free or reduced-cost mortgages. No free lunches, right? So kudos to the guys who are at least being honest about their plans.

Don't get me wrong. I'm abstaining on the question of whether a tax hike on the rich and providing all sorts of new benefits for everybody else is a good thing. You can pass judgment on that for yourself. My own position on this is that if that's what people vote for, that's exactly what they should get. So I'm not criticizing. I'm just laughing at the rate of speed at which "rich" is being defined downward. It's like the check has arrived at the table, and everybody is fumbling for their wallet and noticing that they are a little light on cash - "hey, can you cover me until payday?"

I've disabled comments because frankly I don't want to see a pissing match between my dear readers there, given that this is election season it would happen for certain. I'm just noting this because, as I said, it's amusing, and also highlights what I was trying to get across yesterday about no free lunches. Even when you are told lunch is free, somebody somewhere has to pay for it. If you absolutely have to tell me what you think about it drop me an email.

NO FREE LUNCH!!!!

I think a lot of the political craziness and the market panic we're suffering through right now is the result of sheer economic illiteracy, and an utter lack of analytic ability on the part of the general public. This includes people who otherwise make a shit-ton of money, who have advanced degrees, and who fancy themselves quite bright.

The key lesson of economics is there is no such thing as a free lunch. Say you go to a conference where you get a free lunch. You enjoy the free lunch, because it's free. But in reality, you have to pay.

What? Can this be true?

Yes, my friends, it is. I know it's hard news to take, but it's true.

It's possible that you get your lunch without paying for it up front - but you actually do pay for the "free" lunch by paying for the entry fee into the conference. (You, or if the conference is sponsored, the people who will try to sell you something). Yes, that's right - the people organizing the ABC-A-Always-B-Be-C-Closing Sales Conference have lied to you. The cost of the "free" lunch is actually incorporated in your event fees. Or the administrative fees. Or if it's a government conference, the taxpayers pick up the tab because they are generous like that. But somebody has to pay; nothing is ever free.

This is true everywhere in life. I was having a discussion about this with somebody in my life who is close to me, somebody who is probably close enough to me to cut my throat in my sleep for having incessantly assaulted her with relentless financial reasoning on this point.

The person made a statement that a zero-down, no interest and payments for a year financing was a good deal. "No, it's not," I said. You still pay a finance fee, they just incorporate it into the retail price." "No they don't," the person said. "It's free financing if you pay within a year." Yeah, then it goes to 17.9% percent, or 29.99% if you're late on a payment. NOT FREE! Especially not free if you screw up. The bank always wins, eventually.

Let me illustrate.

Few big businesses that retail big ticket items actually own the gear they sell. They have "floor plan," a pile of stuff on the sales floor and in the warehouse that is "purchased" using some kind of credit arrangement. In reality, a bank owns the cars at the local Ford dealer. The bank floats the dealer $3 million to have a few hundred cars in the lot, at some sort of preferred commercial rate - more preferred now than ever, since the Fed stepped up to guarantee bank-to-bank commercial loans. Anyhow...

All businesses have more or less predictable overhead to cover, including payroll, facilities, insurance, capital investment requirements, and so forth. Let's say that car dealer needs to make 10% profit on a car - a figure lower than a lot of car dealers probably usually make but we'll use it - to cover overhead. Let's also assume a 7% simple interest rate, non-compounded, for loans relating to that car.

The dealer gets a car from Michigan. It costs $10k from the factory. The bank covers this cost, giving Ford $10k, and sending the bill to the dealer. The dealer doesn't need to pay for the car right now, but the bank expects interest payments on the loan. If that car sits on the lot for a year, the dealer needs to eventually cough up $10,700 to pay back the bank. (7% x $10k = $700, right?). Whoops, there goes that 10% profit rate the dealer needs to keep the door open. So the dealer has a big incentive to sell - a few hundred cars racking up a hundred bucks interest every six weeks starts to be real money pretty soon.

Now assume somebody wants to buy the car on day 1. The dealer can sell the car for $11,000, make the necessary 10% profit, and everybody is happy. Ford Motors already has their money - so who cares about them. The bank gets their $10k (we're ignoring service fees here, which are the bank's profit margin) so they're happy enough, and you get a car. Everybody's happy. Especially if the dealer managed to sell you on some highly profitable loan program. (E.g. $10k financed over 5 years. Mmmmmmmm...oney!)

Now assume the dealer is having trouble moving that car. After six months on the lot, the dealer owes $10,350. To make a 10% profit, the car has to sell for $11,380 or so - a slight price hike. But the car is both higher priced (less likely to move) and the new model year is coming, so they have to move it. How to move the thing out?

What they do is fiddle with the price a little bit, and offer really attractive financing. The ads you see will be for 'zero down, zero interest for a year.' So you go in to buy the car. You find out that the car is priced a little more expensively than at the Ford dealer across town - just a few hundred bucks - which unbenknownst to you is precisely how much it will take to pay the interest and principle on the floor plan loan. So the car is selling for $11,700, as opposed to $11,250. (The guys across town know the deal; they were selling at $11k but have hiked prices 'cuz your dealer hiked prices - it's what the market will bear).

So the price is a little high, but there's this great free financing deal. Like the person close to me, you assume you can get it paid off in a year. If you don't, then you get charged finance charges back to day 1 of the purchase - compounded. If you're so much as a millisecond late making a payment, your interest will get hiked to the statutory maximum, something in the 25% - 30% depending on where you live.

But boy howdy, the financing is free right now, 12 months same-as-cash. So you go for it.

Do you see what's happened here? You just paid for the year's worth of finance charges that the dealer would have had to pay, had the car not moved. But not only did the car move, it also moved at a profit, since your credit isn't perfect and you are grateful as hell you could get such a good deal. Ultimately, even if you pay the thing off in under a year, you will pay 700 more than you would have paid otherwise. No, you aren't going to get the great financing plus the $1000 rebate that you saw in another ad - you can ask for it but they will tell you it's one or the other. And since you don't have cash on hand necessary to qualify for the $1000 rebate (small print: $2,000 down, excellent credit rating, Venus on the cusp of Uranus), you'll take the interest-free financing.

What's really nice about it, is the bank gets paid immediately, so those troublesome floor plan interest payments are gone. The dealer is off the hook, with ~$1300 in his pocket - better than he could have done selling the thing at barebones Manufacturer's Recommended Price of $11,000. And, there's always the prospect of you screwing up on your payments, followed by a highly profitable interest rate hike. Oh, happy day!!!

Now here's where the person close to me and I differed in opinion. Said person commented, "but they only sell the cars at one price."

"Yep," I said. And the higher retail price that they charge reflects the cost of financing your purchase "interest free" for a year. Some people may come in and buy the car with cash up front, and they pay the premium too, since the cost of the promotion has to be reflected in the sticker price. They might get the rebate. If they don't, well, SUCKER!

Thing is, you can't run a business offering free financing if the cost of "free" financing isn't reflected in the sticker price. Not going to happen. You gotta cover that overhead.

The person close to me commented, "but the place I got the washer and dryer from several years ago on that arrangement was the cheapest retail price I could find."

My response was, as you'd expect, infuriating to the person.

I said that the penalties and interest in the arrangements - which the business counts on a lot of dummies getting stuck with - more than makes up for any losses if the margin is narrow. When the "free" financing is issued, they have a pretty good idea of who will pay early and who won't, and that is reflected in the price of the item - quick payers pay a little for credit, slow ones pay lots. But everybody pays.

Similarly, if you look hard enough, you'll find a business selling the exact same item, at a marginally lower price. It won't be a lot lower - if the car is fetching $11,700 at this dealer it will be $11,250 across town, they need to drop the price enough to induce you to drive your old hoopty across town to buy the new one, but they'd be silly to go below that level. So, to some extent, a lot of other consumers are paying for "free" financing deals. See how easy credit distorts the market a bit?

Now there are some exceptions to this. If a retailer is really getting hammered on finance charges, they will liquidate stock. Say the car has sat there for a year. The profit margin at $11,000 is now down to $300, because the floor plan interest charge for one whole year was $700. But the dealer needs cash flow to pay the interest, and has to move the thing, so they'll sell it for $10,750 - "all stock must go!" But you'll notice, they aren't actually taking a loss on it, and again, the price of financing ($700/year) is still reflected in the sticker price.

You still following me here?

The bottom line is that there's *no free lunch*. Everything has to be paid for by somebody. If you are the final consumer of a product, you or similarly situated people are the folks who have to pay. There are a lot of complexities to it that I glossed over or ignored, but I beg you to remember that everybody pays sometimes.

Keep this in mind when you're buying cars, attending conferences, or listening to people promise you free healthcare, mortgage bailouts, or anything else.

It ain't free, the only real question is who is going to pay, and who will profit.

Race 'til You Puke!

I told ya I booted at DC CX on the last lap, right? Well, it turns out I'm not the only one, it was apparently pretty common, due to the lactic acid-building properties of the course - 10 seconds on, 10 off, for the whole race. What makes me special is here's some photographic evidence of the yakkitude - no chunks thanks to a breakfast mainly comprised of Gu, a protein bar and a bunch of espresso, mainly a thin spray of bile and just a few bits of solid food salted into it. Yep, that's me...

Livin' the dream, friends... Livin' the dream.

Picture stolen from this guy, who takes some good racing pics.

DCCX

My effing eyes hurt.

I’m sitting here six or seven hours after my race ended and I’m still mildly nauseous, with an occasional chill washing over me, a mild headache, crampy, and my frigging eyes hurt.

It’s possible I’ve dug deeper at a race but I don’t know when.

The race started okay. I had a nice spot in the fourth row, which put me about six or eight rows up from the back – probably 90 riders started the B master. Going up the 250 yard uphill start – my cup of tea really – there was a real scrum with a lot of pushing and shoving. A guy half wheeled me and cut in, my front tire rubbing severely on his rear. There was more pushing through the second and third turns, then it settled into a long line. A few guys whizzed past me – maybe a half dozen guys who had bad starting position and who knew they had to fight desperately, right now, to move up. And around we went for a while.

The course was in lovely shape today. It was a bit slippery on the turns, but the last 12 months of mountain biking are paying off. I felt really comfortable hanging it out and getting loose in the turns. I would get gapped on anything going uphill – this ain’t the midpack C’s, the midpack B masters generally have some holes in their games but they are also smart enough to spot your holes, and exploit the heck out of them. But then I could make up the gaps in the turns, with lurid, foot-down, rear-wheel slides. This wasn’t enough to keep me from losing composure dismounting at the uphill barriers when a guy cut me off, and I had trouble unclipping, but it kept me in the game for quite a while.

Through about two laps I kept this up. The field started to get really strung out at that point; the long string broke going into the third lap, and instead of two and four bike gaps, there were 20 yard gaps in places. Going into the third lap I started to have some trouble. Some people had attacked off the front, or maybe just figured out the course, and the field was destroyed, along with my legs. Coming down off the hilly section and onto the cobblestones, I decided to soft pedal a bit to try to regain breath and composure. Onto the tarmac, down the off-camber into the grass, and onto the tarmac I attempted to keep smooth and just light pedal. After this 25 second rest, I figured I was ready to stand on it. So I stomped as hard as I could to violently accelerate and open a gap on the guys a little ways behind me.

The acceleration was barely perceptible. The cupboard was bare.

I hung on as well as I could for that lap. A few guys passed me on the long grass straight and I pulled it closer in the technical bits, but that string broke pretty quick going up past the pits and into the tarmac. I mentally retrenched, tried to find a power output level that would be potentially sustainable and just cranked it.

I rode alone for the rest of the lap and the next, passing a bunch of guys, including lapping a few. It was really lonely and I was hurting bad, barely able to get up the starting straight. I think one guy passed me through here. Then it was into the last lap. Up the hills, around, and down I came. I got down the hill and headed toward the pits, still working on keeping steady pressure on the pedals, as much as I could do. My inner voice was screaming at me to go harder, a couple guys were only 5 seconds back. As I pedaled down past the pits my stomach started heaving and I started coughing a bunch. At first I thought it was an asthma attack. Then my lunch started coming up. Mmmm… sooooo dizzy. I skidded to a stop just before the tarmac, and yakked and coughed up chunks into the weeds. I thought about bailing but decided to get back on the bike and go. I took a couple quick hits from the asthma inhaler - the cough was gone after I chunked, so the cough wasn't asthma, it must have been breakfast struggling to crawl up my throat and go sunbathing - but I wasn't thinking too clear just then.

So back onto the bike I went, and if the cupboards were bare before, they were spinning and quite possibly on fire now. I pedaled as hard as I could go up the tarmac road, but there was nothing going on and I was dizzy as hell. I navigated through the semi-technical bits, did the runup as a walkup, and basically kept swooning all the way around. As I came up the road past the start finish, I was having real trouble keeping on keeping on. So I pulled off, went and sat in the car, and let the world spin for a couple minutes until it stopped spinning.

The verdict? Hard to say. I rode pretty strong, right up until I didn’t. If that had been a typical 40 minute race, +/- two minutes, I’d have finished strong and been alright. Instead, I rode up to about 48, and had to stop. It was clear to me that I had ridden past my limits. I’m getting pissed at myself about my habit of DNF’ing when I’m out of it, but jeebus… the frickin’ car was spinning. That's the one hand. On the other hand, I rode right up to my limits and blasted through them. I'm here to tell you, life in Justpast Yourlimitsville is not all it's cracked up to be. All things considered, I'd rather be in Philadelphia.

That was six hours ago. I’m still not quite right – is this some kind of lactosis? The headache is slowly dissipating. I’m being stricken with random cramps, not least of them in my hand when I was fueling up the car. My body feels like it’s divorced from my mind right now – I can see and hear and write, but my body feels like it’s living in a separate zip code right now – 10257, to be precise. I’ll be paying for this tomorrow.

So why do I do this again?

Oh yeah, that’s right. Because I like it.

Like the song says, I’m down with the sickness.

I bet you think I am writing all this from affectation, to be witty at the expense of men of action; and what is more, that from ill-bred affectation, I am clanking a sword like my officer. But, gentlemen, whoever can pride himself on his diseases and even swagger over them? Though, after all, everyone does do that; people do pride themselves on their diseases, and I do, may be, more than anyone.

- Dostoyevsky, Notes From the Underground

As usual, if it's a demented part of the human condition, Dostoyevsky has a passage summing it up.

And oh by the way, did I mention - my eyes friggin' hurt?


Many thanks to CityBikes MTB club, Matty D and the other promoters, announcer Bega, the Dutch pancake artists, the Belgian embassy-sponsored pommes frites, and the many, many friends who made it a really special day. The race was great; the event overall was beyond great. See you all at Rockburn.

Water Bottles

Il Tacchino Ciclicross - The Turkey - Is Coming!!
Sunday, November 23

It will be at Ida Lee Park in Leesburg, VA. Due to park construction the course has been redesigned and now has even more faster sections, plus some technical stuff that will make you cry the first time through, sigh the second, and smile the third time and thereafter once you figure it out. Ida Lee Park also has a couple playgrounds for the kids, tennis courts, a big ol' pool and a jacuzzi that seats about 50, so you can race, play with the family, pay a couple bucks to get in a post-race soak, *all right there at the race venue.* After that you can head into Leesburg and check out some of the quaint little shops and excellent restaurants.

-----------------------------------------------

After a ride a few weeks ago with K, when he was talking about this major, bigtime, fully automatic espresso maker he had recently purchased, I got to thinking: why the hell do I drink lousy espresso all the time? Some places have okay espresso. There's a kid at the Java Shack, and this one girl who works there sometimes, who pull good shots. Murky usually has a good shot. Once in a while the Bean gets it right. But most of the time I'm stuck with this overflowing cup of bitter and weak 'espresso'. They simply run too much water through the beans to make it properly strong, and this also burns the beans and makes the stuff bitter. I can make okay stuff at home but it's more like Turkish Coffee. I have a Krupps steam-powered espresso that works okay, but that's more like Turkish Coffee too - no rich crema. This is something I've been thinking about upgrading for a long time, but haven, t really moved on.

K's talking about how nice it was to have a great shot on tap at will got me thinking more seriously about it. In his case, he had a nice confluence of frequent flier miles and a big sale at Williams Sonoma or somesuch, whereas my Sainted Wife is currently between jobs, and the only place I fly is off my bike in the woods in technical sections. So what's a ghetto-ass espresso lover to do?

First, I started reading up on machines on CoffeeGeek.com. Let me tell you, if you think roadies are bitchy, particular people, you haven't exposed yourself to espresso fanatics. Cripes! The place is like Bikeforum, for really, really wired up and irritable people. (Maybe try some decaf, guys?)

But these coffee ueber-achievers do have some opinions about espresso makers and grinders and such, and a lot of experience with a lot of different machines. Three things became clear to me after a lot of reading. (1) A semi-automatic machine is the best combination of affordability and consistent good espresso; (2) A manual "lever" machine is beautiful, hard to get good at, the purist approach, what I want eventually, and wicked expensive for something that is so hard to use; and, (3) all the good machines are bloody expensive and I should probably go entry level to figure out what the hell I'm doing and whether the hassle is worth it.

So there was only one solution - look for a decent entry-level machine used. E-bay, here we come!

A lot of the really premium "entry" level machines, like the Rancillio Silvia, hold their value really well. So if you buy one new for $500, the sexy thing will re-sell for $400. A bit out of my price range. On the other hand, an unglamorous Starbucks Barista, about which the consensus is "okay basic machine, good starter" used to retail for $400, and can be picked up used in good shape for $75 or $100. It's actually just a re-branded Solis 166, a decent, legit entry-level Eye-talian espresso maker. It has the added benefit of having actual negative bling factor due to its association with teh Eeeevil Empire of bad espresso, Starbucks.

Off I went to e-Bay, (E-bay? Eba-y?) and after a couple auctions, I landed one for about $75. After some initial consternation over the seller's slow shipping (I guess he hadn't been drinking enough coffee or something) it arrived.

I was a little disappointed at first. The knob for the steam wand - to turn steam on and off - broke in shipping. It looks like there are a couple seals that ought to be replaced. I'm looking at $9 for the knob, maybe $10 worth of seals.

But on the other hand, I fired it up, put in 3 level tablespoons of finely ground bean from my favorite coffee shop, tamped the beans down with 30-40 pounds of pressure... and produced a pretty damn good shot of espresso. I was shocked - it wasn't as good as the best shot I ever had at Murky, but it was better than I've ever had at Starbucks or Caribou. It was creamy, full bodied, and about 25% of the shot's height was 'crema' - head like you'd get on a properly poured Guinness.

It was sublime. If this is a bad shot from a mediocre machine, I can't wait to get a bad shot from an okay machine.

Would it be pathetic if I told you I'm hooked and am turning into a pathetic espresso junkie?

It's sad but true.

So the next step is to get a decent grinder. The grind is possibly more critical than the espresso maker, I'm told. It seems blade grinders heat up the beans and burn off the essential oils, and wreck the taste. Cheap burr grinders don't grind small enough. But it's okay, I've got a plan there too. Starbucks sold a fairly inexpensive burr grinder, one that isn't really adjustable enough or fine grinding enough to produce really good espresso. But it's really cheap, a rebranded Solis Maestro, the original version, which is a reasonably solid basic burr grinder. *And* there's a hack to make it work really, really well. Good enough to make great espresso even in a premium machine. That's next on the list.

Eventually, there's a really nice premiumm espresso machine and grinder in my future. But for now, I'm satisfied with my low-rent used machine, and I'll be thrilled to death when I get a decent (also low-rent) grinder to go with it. Sometimes, the image just doesn't matter as much as the performance.

---------------------------------------------

Guilty Pleasure - There's a BettyBetty link to GoFugYourself. It's a really bitchy fashion blog that deconstructs... pretty much everybody. There is some funny stuff though, and if you can stand the feeling that you're turning into Gore Vidal to laugh at it, it's worth a visit. Where else can you find:

MC Hammer's Pants, Recycled on a Short Chick

The RingWraith

A Person with Horrifying Hands

(Do not click on this link)

Water Bottles: 3% Lithium Solution Edition

Are you all jacked up in the head? Me too, apparently.

Personality Disorder Test Results Paranoid |||||||||||||| 58% Schizoid |||||||||||||| 58% Schizotypal |||||||||||| 50% Antisocial |||||||||||||||||| 74% Borderline |||||||||||||||| 62% Histrionic |||||||||||||| 54% Narcissistic |||||||||||||| 58% Avoidant |||||||||||||| 54% Dependent |||| 18% Obsessive-Compulsive |||||||||| 38%

Take Free Personality Disorder Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

Take the test and see how you stack up to me.

After that you can sit in the corner in a fetal position and rock yourself to sleep, muttering about how your mother didn't love you enough.

------------------------------------

I don't know about you, but it helps me to figure out well ahead of time what clothes to wear in any given weather. I hate to be sitting there prior to the morning commute/training session, trying to figure out what to wear. The existential struggles between long sleeve base layer or arm warmer, tights or knee covering, headband or skully seem as epic at 5:30 AM as other classic struggles such as cats versus dogs, good versus evil, shit or go blind.

The Table of Suffering

At or Below	Then Add
70	Knee warmers
60	Short sleeve base layer
55	Long sleeve base layer (ditch the shorty)
50	Add long sleeve jersey. MTB gloves with fingers; ditch short sleeve jersey (duh) or add arm warmers.
45	Add wind vest, headband
40	Carry arm warmers, wear wicking skullcap. Toesies. Ditch the headband. Consider polypro glove liner.
35	Ditch the long sleeve base, substitute long sleeve polypro or wool long sleeve base layer; bib tights in lieu of shorts+knee warmer. Put on real winter gloves.
30	Full tights under shorts – wool or polypro; polypro skullcap, keep knee or leg warmers. Poly booties.
25	Wool or poly tights, under bib tights. Depending on wind, synthetic or poly base layer, wool jersey. If synthetic jersey, then thermal vest. Arm warmers. Wool socks.
20 or lower	Wool or poly tights & top base layer. Bib tights, wool jersey. Cycling windbreaker. “Chickenhead” polypro head cover. Winter gloves, with ‘running glove” liners. God bless if you're riding on the road in this weather; this is MTB only for me.
	***If windy, then subtract 5 degrees. If dewpoint is within 5 degrees of temp and temp is under 60, subtract 5 degrees. (E.g. 50 degrees with 10 MPH wind (-5) and 48 degree dewpoint (-5) feels about like 40.

I'll probably print that up and tape it to my gear closet door tonight. The key to being warm enough is to start out a little too cold and as soon as you start feeling comfortable start unzipping stuff and removing transitional clothing. If it's under 45-50 degrees, if you let yourself get sweaty, you're in for trouble, the degree of severity is determined by the temp & wind. You don't want to be going hypothermic and then get hit with a flat tire.

Caveat: I'm well insulated. You may need to adjust your layering up or down 5-7 degrees. So instead of putting on a long sleeve base layer at 55, maybe you do it at 60. What works, I think, is the idea of a logical progression, from one set of layering to the next. Some things I immediately regret putting on if it's too warm, like the polypro base layer. That throws me into a sweat/freeze cycle.

------------------------------------

Just a reminder: Tacchino Cross, Leesburg, November 23. There will be a guy in a turkey suit.

5 Smart Things About Granogue

My race at Granogue CX was cut mercifully (or mercilessly) short when I snapped a chain standing up to try to jet past a couple guys. It had been an okay race for me up to that point, hanging on or just a short way off the back of the main long string of riders. So I don't have much to say about it. That's racing, and the big strong fat guy has just busted another drivetrain component. C'est la vie élevée. In lieu of having something good to say about what I did, I'll fall back on a good rule for blogging generally: try to say five smart things about something, and that will make a post worthwhile. So here goes.

1) I rode up with Jon & Trevor. They are excellent road trip companions. Any time you spend ~4 hours in a car with a couple guys, and you spend 75% of it laughing your ass off, then you know you've got a good combination. We seem to have decent races together, the relaxed vibe probably helps. In a nutshell, that also describes running into all the close and not-so-close friends you meet in cross. The general social ethos is to stand around and chat with just about anybody. It's a bit like church, and we're all believers. It makes every weekend homecoming weekend. But the vibe starts with the immediate circle.

2) Cross is very small-d democratic. You can be two of the best riders in the country or the world for that matter, on a bucks up team, and guess what... you can register your own bad self. There's no team manager going to the promoter's tent to handle it for your. I give you: Wicks & Tree Farm, standing in line. And not complaining about it.

Wicks & Trebon: They're the Tall Guys

Double bonus egalitarian-nature-of-cross coverage: Best rider in the world Sven Nys eats it on Saturday, gets a bike in the face, needs to be hospitalized and get stitched up. Please note: The pack does not slow down and wait for him to rejoin. Welcome to plebe-ville, Sven.



Nys is the guy who stacks it, takes a bike in the face hard, then sits there like a guy who has just stacked it and taken a bike in the face hard.

3) The New Kings of Rhythm are a badass funk band. They played the play area at Granogue, up near the pits. Any band capable of getting older ladies from the barbecue catering company as well as young L'il Belgians dancing around in the grass, is *tight*. They will definitely put some funk in your trunk.

Check 'em out.



I won't tell anybody you were bobbing your head to that just now. Click through here if you're interested in sampling their funkadelic sound and maybe getting an album or at least tour dates.

4) The technical parts of the course were no big deal this year. Rocking a single speed MTB in some fairly serious places under the tutelage of some expert MTB'ers - the local shop ride guys in fact, and some of their friends - has added a sci-fi-like alternate dimension to my bike handling. No, I'm not the greatest handler in the world, but I can rock the off-cambers, high speed turns and narrow stuff. People who can't - they truly stand out in cross. And not in a good way. Get thee to some single track, my brothers and sisters.

5_ Some of y'all suffered this weekend, and it was glorious. Such as:

Fat Marc's Clincher.

Who the hell rolls a clincher?

Beth Mason. She was sitting in the pain cave, watching the Ohio State game and probably wishing she had a beer.


Jeremiah Bishop. Who shows you that nice guys don't necessarily finish last - sometimes they're in contention for the win and end up 4th despite a little mechanical problem.


So that's Granogue, wrapped and in the can for another year. It was a great race, as always. Delightful venue, tough but fair course, well-run, good stuff outside the actual race (such as tasty food vendors and a terrific band) and all around one of the best races there is. Everybody says that their race is the best, but the DCCOD really delivers. How good is this race?

Not satisfied to be a UCI C1 race, on a great day, in a great venue, with packed fields...

There was free freakin' craft brew beer.

Res ipsa loquitur.

Presidential Endorsement

This probably violates the Hatch Act, or the Mann Act, The Aristocrats or something, but people have been asking me who I endorse for president. That's easy. I endorse Wendell, of the Common Sense Party. Why? Because forget spreading the wealth around, forget shooting your moose. Instead, Live the High Life. That's what I say. Take it away, Wendell:



Somehow, I think Fat Marc will get on board this campaign of beers, le toute suite.

Wasser Flaschen

Kevin talks a bit about the President's Mountain Biking habits here. Apparently, The First Cyclist (that should be the name of an MTB blog, really) hit Rosaryville over the weekend for a little up-down-all around action. No word on whether he rode the log skinnies or was savvy enough to take the secret technical loop, but I hope he at least did that. The log sections and the box drops, not to mention the crazy berms, are Rosaryville's best features. The way he rides not bad for a guy who is 50-something, and all the usual political grousing aside, intensely busy and under severe stress at all times.

Just in case you were wondering how bicyclist benefits keep getting passed through Congress, it probably has something to do with bike commuting Rep. Oberstar (don't call him Fred) chairing House Transportation, and an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) (the Executive Branch agency that controls all the other agencies - kind of like The Ring in Lord of the Rings) that is conscious of POTUS' passion for cycling. Kevin indicates that there may be some goodies coming for MTB'ers as a result of POTUS' interest relating to National Park Service policiesand mountain biking. I'm not sure if that is true or what will be coming, but that would be nice. The land is there to be used, not sealed in amber. Responsible mountain biking, hiking, horseback riding, camping, hunting, and properly managed off road vehicle use, timbering and grazing can all have a place in wilderness management, and any step toward that (especially one that I'll directly benefit from) has my support.

--------------------------------------

Burt Hoovis links to one of the stupidest things you can do with an old bicycle.

Me? I'll show you one of the smartest.

--------------------------------------

Chuckwagon Balm: I've heard municipal bonds are both tax free, and running around 6% yield. That will drop if the market recovers. Meanwhile, 6% beats the crap out of losing your shirt in the market. I'd think about it if I had any money. That's like the Pope considering observing Jewish holidays, basically. Nope, no risky market schemes for me. My money's tied up in a safe investment - my house!

Oh wait a minute... damn...

The Difference Between a Roadie and a Racer? $30 and Commitment

Mike May, with David Kirkpatrick's help, is doing a series called "So you want to be a racer."

It's good, but Dave-style, it's got details. Heck, it's a series.

Here's the real poop on a short scoop.

Anybody can do it if they have the desire, a reasonable bike, and the mental toughness to hang in there when they are getting their ass kicked. A few rare souls start out fast. These become Cat 4s and Cat 3s in short order, then start getting their asses kicked, usually pretty badly. A few people stick with it all the way up to the Cat 1 / pro ranks. These people get their asses kicked a lot, but hang in there because most of them can help a teammate kick ass once in a while, and a few of them, once in a great, great, rare while, get a chance to kick a little ass.

If you want to race, you need to make up your mind right now, right this very moment, that you'll try it, and that you are going to hang on until your legs and lungs hurt so much you're out of your skull. You do that a few times, stick to your commitment, and after a while you'll be doing just fine.

So here's the deal. David's going to continue to give you the fine points of how to start racing. I'll give you a shortlist of down & dirty stuff. I hope he sees it as complimentary, not competitive or downing his effort. Assuming you haven't raced before:

1) Make sure your bike is in order. Start riding it consistently right now and over the winter. It doesn't need to be the latest and greatest; as long as everything is screwed on tight, well lubed, and it shifts, pedals and brakes okay, it's fine. Get it fit or you'll be jeopardizing your knees and back. An inexpensive bike with basic components is a really good choice for a beginning racer.

2) Better get some cold weather gear, that, or a trainer that you ride *religiously*, y'know, if you were actually a religious person. If you're buying up, go with bib shorts. Just take my word on that, 'kay? Layer up with cheap stuff from Target and Wallys if you need to - base layer, glvoes, skull caps, etc. From the bike shop or Performance or something - breathable bike jerseys, wind vest, arm warmers, knee warmers. The knee warmers are key if you want to be walking when you're 50, BTW.

3) Find the local racing listserve. Your local bike shop should be able to clue you in; if they can't, find a new bike shop. Try to find out when the training race series starts, pre-season. It's easier to learn in more casual races, when everybody's fat and slow, than it is to hop in sometime in May. Yeah, it will suck to race in the cold. Yeah, you'll be apprehensive and not as fit as you'd like to be. So it's bad. But not as bad as going from not racing, to hitting a crit averaging 27 MPH. (Hey, I thought this was Cat 5! WTF...)

4) Friel, coaching, powertaps, all that stuff is nice. Don't bother until you've raced at least a little while. Same thing with bike & clothing upgrades. For now, you need to ride hard for 60 - 90 minutes a couple times a week, and go easy in between the hard workouts, maybe 75 minutes or 90 minutes, or picking up 2-3 hours easy on weekends. Start really riding with more intensity - short efforts of 1-5 minutes of eye-bleeding effort, you can do these by hammering up local hills where you live going all-out, for a month or so before the racing season - the real season, not training races - starts. Seriously. This will get you in good race shape. The key is resting and doing recovery rides real slow, so you can go ultra hard when you're supposed to be going hard.

5) It wouldn't hurt to find a hard local group ride. Around Dec 15 - Jan 1, the pace will ratchet up from friendly to "we're racin' in 60 days time" pace. It's better to start with the group before they get deadly serious so you know the routes.

6) Number 5 matters because you will get dropped. That's part of the deal, live with it. You aren't deserted, rather you're out for a zone 2 / tempo ramble, and you're fine with that because you're appropriately dressed for the weather, you have a 20 in your pocket, a couple water bottles, and a general notion of where you are.

7) For your cold weather rides & races - strip off layers of clothes before you are sweating hard. Eat before you feel hungry, drink before you're feeling thirsty. 400 calories / hour, 16 - 20 ounces of fluid per hour is a good rule of thumb.

8) Don't forget to schedule fun. When you're doing your long slow ride, you can wear a heart rate monitor or whatever, but don't beat yourself up about pace. A little slow or a tiny bit (tiny means tiny) too fast is no big deal. Ride it with your buddies, go to a place that has the best hot chocolate evah, and enjoy the riding. Do some mountain biking for a change. Just have fun. Burnout is a huge problem for lower Cat racers who get nervous about being fit enough, ride like hell, have some initial success, then want to throw their bike in the woods by July 1.

9) Do it now. The idea you can wait until you're fitter is stupid. Until you race, you will never be fast or skillful enough to race. The purpose behind the early season (pre-season) training races is to help racers ramp up for the season. The C races for beginners are especially geared with this purpose in mind. Take advantage of it. Racing - even racing where you get your ass kicked - will make you a lot faster than any kind of training you can do. (Motor pacing notwithstanding, but you Padawans don't want to even think about that yet). You will be too fat, or too slow, or too worried about riding in a pack *forever.* Problem is, life isn't forever, it's short, and you have to jump in to experience it.

10) Make the commitment now, then follow the steps and execute. Anybody can race up to a decent level, with some commitment and effort. Good luck.

Water Bottles

Ch-ch-ch-changes... I've been reshuffling the blog linkage list over on the right side. Check it out if you haven't for a while. There's a few new links, and if you want to get listed, drop me a line. If your blog doesn't totally repulse me at an elemental level, I'll link you. Meanwhile, here's a vid link from Peter Hymas who writes beautifully and informatively at his excellent blog, Bobke Strut. Like Ryan Newill at The Service Course, Peter doesn't write a lot but when he does, it's almost always worth reading. He either passes along the best news, or does his own thoughtful analytical pieces and essays. Thanks to the handy new functions Blogger provides, you can just hit up Ryan's and Peter's links over on the right and tell if they've been recently updated.


Adam Kimmel presents: Claremont HD from adam kimmel on Vimeo.

----------------------------

Hey, this is what racers need - soon, you'll be able to buy beers at Burger King, or at least at select franchises. Because what you need when you're eating some high calorie, high fat, intensely tasty junk food, is some highly caloric, empty-calorie stuff that will make you want to eat lots more high calorie, high fat, intensely tasty junk food.

Okay, fine, it's the last thing a racer needs. But as a business proposition, I don't see how this could lose. And if I'm an Internal Medicine doc with a specialty in diabetes or obesity, I'd be asking the local BK franchises if I could stick a business card on their cork boards.

----------------------------

I went out to Ida Lee Park in Leesburg with Kendrow and JeanBean today to lay out the Tacchino 'cross course. The bad news is that the old course is gone. The good news is I think you're going to like the changes that the construction has forced. Don't ask for inside info because there isn't any; we have to clear the changes with the park officials. Meanwhile, remember that Ida Lee is a great, family friendly facility. You can catch a swim or a hot whirlpool bath in an enormous jacuzzi pool after the race for a nominal fee, and there are many good restaurants in Leesburg - not to mention the shopping outlets if somebody in your family absolutely can't be bothered to spectate. The race will fall on the weekend before Thanksgiving. Some of you may be at Whitmores way the hell out on Long Island. The rest of you? You're invited to the Tacchino. More details to follow.

----------------------------

The economy may be tough. But don't worry about how bad it is. As long as Manhattan-based investment bankers can still afford hookers, things must not be that bad. And as long as those who lecture us about family values and faith and ethics can still manage to have affairs and pay hush money, we know that life goes on as it always has. As for the guy allegedly having the affair and his boss, like him, I'm confident that the ethics authorities will clear him and find that nothing he did was wrong.

Pardon me while I go stand out in the cold and ponder for a while how outmoded my tired old traditional morals are compared to the people who are telling me how to live.

----------------------------

It was a good weekend for me. The Tarheels beat Notre Dame - a team I despise, after having been probably the only Catholic kid in New York to hate Teh Irissh from birth. Then Dallas and Washington both choked out. The Devil Rays beat, and beat up, the BoSox. And it looks like my Giants may actually win tonight on MNF. Buffalo had a bye week, so at least nothing bad happened - a familiar refrain of Bills fans.

So The sporting life is good to me right now. If only Syracuse wasn't weaker than an octagenarian with malaria...

----------------------------

But Everybody Says...

People say a lot of stuff that's supposed to be wise. Conventional wisdom, I think they call it. The problem is, a lot of conventional wisdom is a Jedi axiom posing as common knowledge. "Oh yeah, sure. Right. I get it. No problem. Simple." That's what everybody says, right before they demonstrate an abject inability to understand what was said, as proved by their miserable failure to execute. I'm here to give a big "oh no, it's not!" to some commonly heard expressions and explain why I think they're farked.

If you have any doubts about your ability to ride it, walk. Safety first.

It wasn't the first time, but the most memorable time I heard it Fat Marc told me (and 190 other people in the field) this gem prior to the big mountain bike race at Granogue. I proceeded to run headfirst into a tree, crack my helmet and concuss myself, endo twice hard on a rocky descent, and endo again at the dropoff/creek crossing. When I came in after one lap, I was looped, bleeding everywhere, and destroyed. Well, duh! Everybody knows you should get off your bike and walk when it gets too dangerous. The problem is that nobody knows where the breaking point is between safe and "too dangerous," until that brief moment in time when they are upside down, about to go incisors-first into a mossy rock. The first inkling occurs when the front wheel starts to tuck under, your weight shifts over the handlebars, and you see the front of the tire, rather than the top. True enlightenment occurs when the rear wheel obtains an altitude of 48" off the ground. For that instant, it’s perfectly clear what safe is, and what unsafe is. It's so easy, a Geico caveman could do it. But to know the difference ahead of time, you need to be really, really f***ing good on a bicycle, to the point where that type of situation isn't really dangerous at all to you. Most of us aren't really, really f***ing good on a bicycle, and we only glimpse the truth when we're upside down, immediately pre-impact. Unfortunately the resulting concussion appears to knock this key piece of knowledge clear out of our brains, to be replaced with a similar piece of knowledge called “The War Story,” which contains identical facts but none of the lessons learned.

Modern clinchers are just as good as tubulars.

You'll read this in supposedly reputable bicycling magazines, like Bicycling, Velo News, and in the red light district of the riding world, Pez.

You want to know a secret? It's a lie.

I figured this out starting last year during 'cross season, but it really hit home over the summer. I got a set of tubular wheels built up for 'cross. 36 spoke Ultegra hubs, straight gauge spokes on Velocity Deep Vees. You can find more rigid hoops, but they tend to be made of cast iron. These wheels should ride really, really, painfully bad. Just to break in the hubs a little I threw on the cheapest training tubulars I could find, some Tufo S-22s. These tires are as thick as a brick and stiff, they have an impossibly low thread count, and they feel as rigid as Tyler Hamilton's adherence to his doping denials.

You know how they rode?

Like heaven. While my Giant's carbon fiber took the big hits out of the ride, the square edged bumps and expansion joints, the occasional pothole, the tubulars took away the high frequency vibration, the road buzz you always feel riding along. Chipseal roads on tubulars are a tiny bit bumpier than brand new 'champagne tarmac' but they aren't the tooth-rattling ordeal they are on a set of Conti Grand Prix pumped up to 120 PSI. In spite of the wheelset's weight, they also felt a lot more responsive and light on climbs. Come to find out, Cyclocross Magazine did a roll-down test where they rolled (gravity only, no pedaling) down a bumpy hill on different types of tires, and tubulars run at low pressure produced insanely faster descents. So in spite of frequently higher rolling resistance, they may actually be faster too.

I asked a few teammates who ride tubulars a lot about this. They said, in effect, "yeah, no shit they're lots better than clinchers. When did you figure this out?"

Admittedly, there are some exceptions. Although tubulars ride much, much better in bumpy terrain on 'cross bikes, my Vittoria Evo 'cross tubulars are evil-handling on wet grass, just treacherous. But I'm told that Grifo's new Fango and the Dugast Rhino are the antidote to this problem, plus they still have that plush tubular ride. So why are the trade journals high on tubulars? I don't know. Maybe you ought to ask their marketing departments about how much money they get to advertaise clinchers, versus how much they're paid to advertise tubulars.

You need to move to the front. It's easier up there.

Did you ever hear this in a crit or circuit race? Well, it's not true. It's hell to get up there, and hell to try to stay, and there's a hell of a lot of problems that come with riding near the front, problems that would not arise if you would pick a good mid-pack position and try to stick there. Up front, in the top 5 or 10, everybody up there is trying to get somebody else to pull the train. And if you aren't, you're stupid and doing the work for other people. And if you're not pushing the pace, a whole string of people are resting and just about to pass you and drive the pace sky-high, totally screwing you for the next three laps as you try to pass them back and as you're desperately hoping one of them doesn't crash you out and put you in the hospital.

No, it's not easier up front. It's just a different set of problems that may, sometimes, be preferable to the problems you'd have elsewhere in the pack.

On the other hand, I can say without reservations that riding anywhere near the back of the pack is much, much harder. That much is true.

Buy low, sell high. Everybody knows this is the key to getting rich.

Really? So what's low, and what's high? If anybody actually knew, they’d be richer than God. Okay, I'm getting away from cycling a bit here but with the markets in a tailspin, it's worth thinking about questioning all the things supposed money experts say all the time. This saying in particular bugs me. The only person who even has a clue about how to do this, is Warren Buffet. His motto is Buy Low, and be friends with a lot of politicians and regulators. Works for him, right? I don’t think he knows how to sell anything though, that’s why he lives in a modest house and drives a modest car and tells all the rest of us how to live. If that wasn't the case, if he knew how to sell his holdings, he'd be suffocated under a pile of cash even bigger than his current pile, deep inside his house made of stacked $20 bills, adjacent to his Rolls Royce with seats stuffed with shredded C notes. People who sell high seem to do so out of luck, fortuitous timing, more than anything. I bet there's a guy out there just kicking himself for selling his 20 shares of Intel stock when it had increased from $10/share to $150/share in just 5 short years between 1967 and 1972. "Sell high, they told me. So I did. But it'd be worth $20 million today! Screw them..." And of course there's nothing in there about not taking loans out against your 401(k) (what's left of it) to buy a new Colnago Extreme Power, not wasting your money on a $750/month Mercedes rental, or not blowing cash on blow, booze, and individuals of ill repute, or not wasting $2.6 million defending yourself against a doping suspension. But I should think those are all secrets to getting rich as well, but other than a few religiously-oriented economic advisors - kind of like 'jumbo shrimp' given the relationship between mammon and morality - saying "don't waste your money in a world class attempt to corrupt yourself." Weird; you'd think that would be common advice. But no, we get "buy low, sell high." Whatever that means.

“_______ is the new black.”

This phrase really bugs the crap out of me because it either means something is trendy and fashionable, or it’s a civil rights cause-du jour. It’s a phrase that has jumped the shark so frequently, it should be wearing a stars and stripes jumpsuit and performing three times daily over the world’s biggest shark tub in Vegas for a crowd comprised of bachelor party-ers, Teamster officials and people who got free tickets after being pitched a time share at Tahiti Village. Every time something is now trendy, or if somebody is asking for special treatment under the laws, this is the quip/argument you hear.

Besides, I think if gay was the new black a year or two ago, then fat is now the new black, at least among a subset of obviously-not-caring-enough 40+ bicyclists. This works in at least a couple respects. I notice a lot of us in the 40+ set aren’t exactly ripped, and even a lot of the skinny guys are kind of on the pasty/flabby side. Apparently most of us get to choose – mushy and reasonably fast on a bike, or hit the gym and be muscle-y and ride a bike for crap. Ahh, the compromises thrust on us by aging, mortgages and kids, right? But don't worry, it's both trendy and a civil rights cause. Since everybody’s doing it, or so many of us, I have to conclude it’s trendy, ergo fat is the new black. You even have really fat people – folks who pass for fat not only among cyclists but among ‘civilians’ lobbying for extra airline seats for their extra wide asses, low insurance premiums, and “person with a disability” status under the Americans with Disabilities Act. We insist we were pretty much born like this, that it’s an unchangeable characteristic of who we are. Thus it’s a civil rights cause too. Next thing you know, a 5'1" climber who has bulked up to 131 pounds - 20 pounds over his optimal race weight - will be getting a blue handicap sticker to put on his bike so the refs can give him a preferential starting position at Poolesville.

So in both ways, Fat is the New Black. Except that nobody is out there looking for that perfect little fat cyclist to flaunt at cocktail parties, and I haven’t idea what to chant when we have our million big person march. Perhaps, No Justice, No Peas? I'm down with that.

Water Bottles

Friend of the Rouleur James K. passes along this good news from Velo News: Belgian television will webcast the SuperPrestige series live starting this week. Now for the bad news: you are probably going to be racing your ass off right around the time Lars and 150 of his closest pals are getting their schwerve on in the Belgian mud. Most of the races are at 9:00 or around 11:00 AM Eastern Standard Time. I'd be much obliged if one of you with knowledge of Belgie-bargie (as opposed to Argie-bargie) could check out the Belgian TV website and let us know if they're offering a podcast version to watch later in the day. The races covered include:

Ruddervoorde (Belgium) Sunday October 12th

Eerde-Veghel (Netherlands) Sunday November 2nd

Hamme-Zogge (Belgium) Sunday November 23rd

Gavere (Belgium) Sunday November 16th

Gieten (Netherlands) Sunday November 30th

Diegem (Belgium) Sunday December 28th

Hoogstraten (Belgium) Sunday February 8th

Vorselaar (Belgium) Sunday February 15th

---------------------------------------------

It's been a death week or two for training. I had a good ride up in Syracuse, except for the fact it was 38, steady 20 MPH winds, occasional drizzle, and hilly pretty much the entire way. We're talking two hours, 26 miles kind of ride, and hard pedaling the whole time. I did that and 'cross practice last week, raced Sunday, layed about in bed most of this week with a head cold the likes of which I've never known before. Yesterday I managed to get down to Rosaryville and did a brisk (for me) 51-52 minute lap, not pushing hard but just riding at The Pace, to get a little ride in. That worked well to clear the head and I did an easy 1:15 with Kidd, topped off with some espresso. I have a gnawing fear that my fitness is blowing away from me, ineluctibly, like a handful of wheel bearings dropped on a garage floor bounce without mercy directly into the drain. I have been hoping to build on my fitness through 'cross season or at least maintain it. These last two weeks have been tearing apart my hopes the way a fat kid tears apart a pan pizza - inevitably, horrifyingly, and most disappointing if you were hoping to grab hold of a slice.

---------------------------------------------

That's it. No racing this weekend, hopefully some riding. Apparently the head cold is going around so I'm not sure what it means for the shop ride. Maybe a little Patapsco excursion? Hard to say. I'll post an update if I find out in a timely manner. Peace, y'all, and have some good weekend rides.

Update: 7:00 AM at Patapsco, Landing Road. Mountain bikes. Two hours.

---------------------------------------------

Update: I went for a ride this morning with my kid. He's not yet 5. We're going up a long hill. He says, "Hills make my legs hurt. I hate hills."

From the mouths of babes...

He also ran up one of the hills whining, with a really ugly face on, bitching about how much his legs hurt. It's possible that (1) he's been practicing his suffering face; or, (2) I've taken him to one too many 'cross races this year. The kid seems to prefer running with the bike to riding it. I'm good on the barriers but otherwise a terrible runner, so it really makes me wonder where he gets it from.

---------------------------------------------

Hey, I noticed that the DCCX is on October 26. That makes it the de facto MABRA Halloween 'Cross race.

Anybody up for wearing a costume? I'm inclined to, frankly, and will if enough people seem interested.

---------------------------------------------

Final update: Holy crap, Ryan Newill has *finally* posted Part II of his epic tale of riding with Team Garmin-Chipotle at this year's Univest. Since Ryan is a really frickin' good writer, it's worth checking out. For his next trick, Ryan will file his 2006 tax returns... sometime next fall.

Recommendations

Sometimes, Amazon emails me and suggests I buy a book or some music or somesuch based on past purchases. (Yes, they send me cheese recommendations too, since they co-market with I-Gourmet, where I get my fancy cheeses). Here's the most recent list. What the heck does it say about me? There's a test at the end so read carefully.

Amazon.com has new recommendations for you based on items you purchased or
told us you own.

Conscience of a Conservative
by Barry Goldwater



Culture Counts: Faith and Feeling in a World Besieged
by Roger Scruton



Brotherhood of Heroes: The Marines at
Peleliu, 1944--The Bloodiest Battle of the Pacific War
by Bill Sloan



Dialectic of Enlightenment (Cultural Memory in the Present)
by Max Horkheimer



The Case Against Barack Obama: The Unlikely Rise
and Unexamined Agenda of the Media's Favorite Candidate
by David Freddoso



Accelerate
by R.E.M.



Leo Strauss: An Introduction to His Thought and Intellectual Legacy (The Johns Hopkins Series in Constitutional Thought)
by Thomas L. Pangle



The Essential Russell Kirk: Selected Essays
by Russell Kirk

What do these reading suggestions mean?
	This is somebody else' reading list, right?
	The Rouleur's butt isn't that big; it's a brain storage area.
	He's a dangerous right winger and must be stopped.
	He's a dangerous left winger and must be stopped.
	Who listens to REM anymore?
	Horkheimer? Isn't that a kind of sausage?
	There's a lot less X-rated stuff here than on Hoovis' Amazon list, tell you what...
pollcode.com free polls