Friday Fun Time

First off, if you haven't pre-registered for All Hallows Cross... well, it's too late. But it's not too late to hustle your butt down to Waldorf for some Halloween Saturday racing fun. Nah, I didn't register either, but if this nasty case of the leprosy clears up by Saturday AM, I'm definitely racing. I'll probably race in costume - not sure if I want to go as Superman, or a nudist. That's probably a race day call.

I noticed a headline on my newscrawl today, "French Pedophile Trial Fuels Castration Debate." I'm not sure if it's really fueling debate, or just throwing another log on the fire.

Slate.com, the online mag for all Right Thinking People asks, and answers, the question: "How Bad Should I Feel About Taking Hot Showers?" The answer? Pretty fuckin' bad, as it turns out, you Earth-molesting sonovabitch. (Newscrawl: Stinky Bike Racer Taking Post-Cross Race Hot Shower Fuels Castration Debate.") In fact, the article makes it clear that if you wash your goat smelling ass using any sort of liquid materials at all, be they hot, cold, or lukewarm, that you are personally responsible for the death of multiple polar bears, who are tall white hairy people who famously get trapped on icebergs because as we all know polar bears cannot swim. In fact, here's a picture of a polar bear drowning, probably the result of some Earth-hater having washed his hands after having a poo. The proper way to shower, apparently, is to get a little damp, turn off the shower, then lather up and go get dressed and go to work. You should jog or take public trans to work so that your sweat will rinse off the suds. Um, make sure there's no cleansy phosphates in your soap either... they contribute to inappropriate algae growth.

You May Smell Good, But
She's Going to DIE Because of You!

If you don't have anything in your life that causes you to hate yourself, be needlessly worried and ultimately conclude every other living creature and perhaps some mineral deposits would be better off if you were dead, Slate's Green Lantern column provides plenty of arguments that will have you finding some self-hateworthy shortcomings in no time, providing a handy reason to lock yourself in a closed garage with the Prius running.

Oh wait a minute... that idling Prius isn't going to help you shuffle off this mortal coil now, is it? It doesn't actually idle so that old standby method of saving the earth by expending yourself won't work. Told you you shoulda gone with the BMW.

I shouldn't pick on people for trying to be green but when we're discussing how washing our Balzac in ice cold water is going to save the Erf, it's hard not to have a reaction in that direction. There once was a country where people said all sorts of crap about the necessity of taking cold baths and their public discourse centered on micromanaging private, small areas of one's personal life like how much sex to have or whether to have kids and how many were required for the health of the nation. We now think those people were insane, prudish, repressed, and obsessed with scientific and medical quackery and their social attitudes are, for the most part, a punchline to us. That country was Victorian England. We're acting just like them, but with a few different obsessions substituted in, plus our imperialism is a lot more half-assed and benevolent. Yet I've seen some articles this week from supposedly reputable publications that make me think we're heading back in that direction and perhaps I should counsel the Wife of Rouleur to cover the piano legs lest the dog become aroused, and when she has to see another Smiling Bob commercial, to lie back and think of England.

Should the Earth be culled of humans as the Guardian suggests? I dunno, maybe. But the question about whether we've gone stark raving nuts about this stuff is something to think about when you're strapping on your hemp chastity belt tonight before bed.

What? Lo, do I hear a complaint? Why yes I do. Some reader thinks I am being mean-spirited and obtuse. Maybe the Earth-cullers are going a little overboard, but their suggestion of genocide is well intended, not like my denialist hoots of derision.

Indeed I am being mean. I find it increasingly hard to be a responsible, non-insane, conservation-minded person. I believe in minimizing our impact to a reasonable extent, but the idea of ice cold and sub-minute showers is enough to turn me into The Deacon. This Erf saving stuff is turning into a contest about how much guilt we can make ourselves feel over imaginary sins. C'mon, people. Some of us have done that before and you don't want to go there. That's called "being raised Irish Catholic." Trust me, if you're going to be Conspicuously Green, the kind you want is the Authentic Green and not the ersatz secular emerald article. And if you have to go green, why not Irish Catholic? We who were raised Irish Catholic are permitted to eat meat (except on certain Fridays), drink beer that makes us belch all sorts of earth destroying methane (except on evenings when we've drunk all the beer and have resorted to Jamesons, which is methane emission, but not DWI free), and we are permitted to take long hot showers (longstanding British government propaganda to the contrary notwithstanding) (and no Bashing the Bishop while you're in there, Patrick...) Plus we get a promise of salvation in return for our guilty feelings, whereas all you get for making a donation to the Sierra Club is an annual membership and a flood of subsequent fundraising letters.

So you want to forget about that crap and have some straight up fun? How 'bout some NSFW fun? Check out the Whitest Kids U Know explaining how Abe Lincoln really died. Seriously NSFW (bad language). I mean really, really NSFW.



I have to give some mad props to Friend of the Rouleur James K. who recently turned me on to local band Clutch. They are kind of good. Check 'em out.

This first song, Electric Worry, is a good intro.



Before you hear the next one, check this out, by classic Chicago-style bluesman John Lee Hooker. Haw haw haw haw... Boom boom boom boom... And that looks like Donald "Duck" Dunn playing the base. Sweet.



Hey, did that John Lee Hooker song sound kind of familiar after Electric Worry? You can almost see the lineage. Now check out Neil Fallon of Clutch doing something similar with a classic sort of blues song, Regulator - puts me in mind of Sonny Boy Williamson.




And here's a song that I can only describe as an antidote to the Jonas Brothers. If you need to wash their filth out of your head, crank this to about 127 decibels, grab a bottle of Knob Creek, and... well... just sit there. It'll knock the Jonas Brothers right out of your head, along with algebra, memories of the ex-girlfriend who set fire to your concert T-shirts, and a lot of Metallica's newer stuff.



Thanks James K. Appreciate the tip.

And have a good Friday and a nice weekend, all y'all.

I'd Do Business With This Guy

If'n I was in the market for a used double-wide anyhow.



The ad suggests an interesting philosophical question: is authenticity still authentic when it is knowingly ironic? The subtext of that ad contains an entire meta commentary about mobile homes and the folks that live in them.* It's a wink and a nod to customers - 'we know you live in a mobile home... doesn't mean you're dumb - in fact we bet you're smart enough to understand this witty commercial - all it means is you live in a mobile home.'

The video about the making of the commercial is pretty good too.

And while I'm on the topic of commercials - check out this video from Casual Adventures. They're a locally owned outdoor outfitter that is providing nifty swag for the Tacchino Ciclocross. We're super pleased that they are supporting the race, but even happier that they made this funny ad.




Speaking of the Tacchino. . . You don't want to miss out on the racing, the great food, the Ommegang ale, or the band.

Yes, I said "the band." Rockville funk outfit Gallons to Ounces will be there to inject a bit of funk in your trunk. They've agreed to funk the place up for your riding and viewing pleasure. Pretty sweet, huh?


So go register for it.




*Full Disclosure: I never lived in a mobile home because, at a point in my life when I had that choice, I went for a feral cat-infested slumlord tenement instead. Shoulda gone for the mobile home.

Just Buggin'

I had a goofy training ride today at lunch. Nothing about it was really outstandingly nuts - there was just a series of inexplicable and weird little happenings that made me think I was a character in a Ben Stiller film - Ben Stiller's hapless character. if you have to know.

It started out when I rode the trainer last night. Really. I was lazy, it was around 11:00, I'd knocked off two hours of L2 watching some crap on TV that was so bad I don't remember it. I was tired, so I went straight to bed without showering. (Yeah, I'm a pig. So sue me. Or, Soooo-weeee, me, as the case may be).

This morning I got up and was going to ride in the rain. I left the house early, had all my gear... and was in stop & go traffic all the way in to the D.C. line. My usual combination commute (drive half way, ride the rest of the way) thing wasn't going to work. So I drove all the way in. Of course the traffic was so horrendous, by the time I got there it was 8:30. "What the hell," I figured. "I'm going to have to go riding at 11:30... no sense in taking a shower now." So I slipped some pants over my bibs, threw on a dress shirt, slipped into my shoes, tied up my tie, and sat down to work. As I warmed up in the flannel dress pants and heavily starched broadcloth shirt, I noticed that I smelled like a dead goat's ass, and just then, a new colleague, a senior guy, walked in. It was his first day on the job. My whole office stunk of dead goat ass. He wanted to talk. I'm sure it made a great impression. So that was the start of the training ride, or at least the staging.

I finally did get out at about 11:45 or so. The dress clothes came off, I slipped on the jersey and the Oakleys and helmet, and took off for a ride. On the way down 15th, I hopped onto the sidewalk going past the Washington Monument. I'm scooting up the sidewalk and this cute blonde tourist was there with what looked like her sister - two girls, three cameras - and she flashes me a huge smile. I try to grin back (it's only polite, right?) and as I open my mouth to smile, an enormous bug lands on my tongue and starts biting it. This hurt a bit. So I flicked my tongue way out and dragged it back over my teeth, trying to dislodge the little sucker. That didn't work. I whipped my tongue out and dragged it over my ten day moustache, hoping to tickle it off or something. That didn't work. So I pull the tongue halfway back in, bite down hard, maybe catch the bug part way and catch my tongue all the way, my eyes pop out... and that's when I notice the cute tourist girl with this enormous look of horror on her face. As I pedaled on by, the bug still gnawing on my tongue, I realized I'd just made a huge series of weird faces and she was probably calling the cops to tell them about this pervert on a bike making a bunch of lewd gestures at her... Around that time I gave up on the bug and the bug gave up on getting lunch, and decided to fly away. I probably have Bot Fly larvae implanted in my tongue but after the social embarrassment of it all I don't care.

But wait, it gets better. As I turned into Hains Point, my mouth was still hurting, but the bug was gone. Unfortunately, my nose was open and as I inhaled a bit, a fly went straight up it. I think it was a fly anyhow, I didn't see it. The fly wasn't content to rest in my nasal cavity; it had to walk around a bit in there, which was somewhat disconcerting to say the least. The tickling got to be a bit much after a half minute or so, and I started coughing and wheezing violently. The fly? Well, I either inhaled and swallowed him, or coughed him out. I hope. It would be disappointing if, in a million years, scientists unearth what's left of me and all that is left is a common housefly encased, amber-like, in a petrified lump of snot.

At Hains Point, I latched onto a small and somewhat disorganized group that was circulating. Pete Lindeman was down there along with a bunch of dudes I don't really know. It was real windy and the distinctive thing about the ride was that people just kept surging and nobody got an echelon working or anything. Which was perfect because I was supposed to do 5 minutes of VO2 work to start with. So I hung with the little group for a lap, surging a lot since I was on the back, then dropped off the back and recovered a bit before starting my 2 x 15 threshold intervals. Nice warmup for it, comparable to a cross race start though not as hard.

After a bit of recovery spinning, I got into my first interval. This must have been National Here Have A Bug In Every Orifice Day. After roughly two minutes of threshold grinding, something flew into my left ear. I think it was a bee because it made a buzzing noise. After 10 or 15 seconds it apparently realized I am already the property of a colony of bot flies, or maybe the home to a happy horse fly, and it decided to leave. Or maybe the high wind blew it out. Or it didn't like the waves of anti-entomological sentiment blowing out of my earholes and the stink of dead goat ass. Regardless, it departed, and it was good.

[Update: I thought there were a lot of bugs out, and the prevalence of bugs caused my problems. Upon further review, there was probably only the normal number of bugs, but my dead goat's ass odor probably attracted them to me. That or I actually died at DCCX last weekend and just don't know it yet.]

So three bugs in three different holes. That's it right?

Well, not exactly. On the second threshold interval, I was heading out toward the Point, about halfway down, and gasping for air. I saw the fly coming toward my mouth, knew I had to do something, so I did what anybody would do: I gasped and inhaled hard as if the air was part oxygen, part vanilla milk shake and didn't even let the fly's presence register until it was too late. Caught up in the enormous vortex, the fly was sucked in and was halfway down my throat before I noticed he was in there. Unfortunately, halfway down my throat was where he decided to stay for a while, park up the Winnebago, look for a power and water outlet, and have a little epiglottal cookout. Being a really brilliant guy, a smart and scientific trainer, I had reasoned that I didn't need food or water for a mere 90 minute workout. So I didn't have any water to wash the damn thing out. Fortunately, I had a violent minute-long coughing fit, which either decimated the bug, or caused it to blow out.

Like all good things, my intervals came to an end. As I rolled around the point for the last time, I realized I had to go to the bathroom pretty badly. I decided I would stop at the bathrooms on the South side of the point, a little bit before the double manhole covers. I started to slow down.

Then it hit me.

There was no way in hell I could risk dropping my drawers to pee there.

Not on National Here Have A Bug In Every Orifice Day, anyhow.


...

Back on Track

Back on track sort of.

Per advice of one of my anonymous but loyal readers, I strapped the diapers back on, hiked up the big girl panties, quit my pathetic weeping and realized even though I suck ass at cross lately the self-hatin' and thoughts of throwing the bike into the pond behind my house ain't doing a damn thing to improve my VO2 ceiling. So back at 'em. Missed riding yesterday due to a hella schedule, would have missed it today but I buckled down and did 85% of the workout, knocking out an hour and 40 on the trainer, L2 grinding. L2 is wicked easy on the road, but on the trainer, you start to cook down after a while and lose power. Not so easy but I knocked it out anyhow. Probably going to ride a couple hours in the friggin rain tomorrow. That will undoubtedly suck too, but it's no time to qo squishy now, George.

Time to buckle down I guess, and get to fuckin' work. Not happy, but then hard work rarely is an occasion for celebration.

CX as a Taoist Activity

Do the red and yellow tapes show us the Tao of Cyclocross? Or am I just a big fat pile of P'u?

Please discuss.

Out and About at DCCX

It's always about me. But first a word about my teammates and some friends.

• Andrew - Balls Deep! Andrew is killing it.
• Peter - ought to quit training more often. He looked smooth out there. Like it was fun or something.
• Kevin - WTF? Strong performance. Rob, Mike and Dave too. Dan... well, we can't match the bling factor. And no cheap Johnny-come-lately crap either. Is there an award for good taste in gear?
  
• Scott T. - Nothing to see here. Just steady Top 10s in a class that today had 115 riders.
• Jon Seibold - as we say on Family Bikes shop rides, "it's because he's Jonathan Seibold, bitch!" Yet another strong race.
• Micah - when a dude's hands are shaking an hour later, you know he worked it.
• Lindsey - nothing to see here. Just a podium in women's elite.
• Meg - killed the monkey. Takes some courage to do that.
• Steve R - flatted in the early race, decided to drink as many beers as possible on the new tire. Then raced pretty strong in the elites. Buzzed. My idol.
• Trevor - crashed. I think I rode over a chunk of his kneecap on the tarmac. It made my wheel hop for a while. Then he came back, passed me and crushed me. Ford tough. If a Ford would run after being crashed hard.
  
• Chicken - took a sweet beer handup, at high speed. Downed it. Barely spilled a drop. Class.
  

I love my teammates and my friends. They are a source of endless amusement and pleasure, and there were just too many standout performances (and funny things) to even mention today. DCCX was a great event, as it's been each of the past two years, and I can't say enough good things about it. Suffice to say, it's an event you put on your calendar in red ink the day the MABRACross schedule is announced.

As for me...

Well, I'm not lovin' on myself a whole lot right now. I don't know where I finished exactly - the results show me as a DNF but there are a bunch of guys I *know* for a fact mechanicaled out who definitely DNF'ed and at least one guy I lapped are shown as ahead of me, but I'm thinking 79th or so is where I landed based on subtracting the guys who I know were behind or DNF, and counting back from the last known guys who passed me.

Scoring issues aside (scoring issues that are understandable given the sizes of Sunday's fields), the bottom line is I suck ass and this is starting to cause me some distress.

I'm a bit thinner than last year - not much, but spending 4 of the first 7 months of the year sidelined with the bummer foot will do that, so I'll settle for "a bit" and the weight loss glide path I'm on, which has me moving in the right direction at a slower rate than in the pre-season but still moving in the right direction. I'm also quite a bit stronger than last year, maybe 7-8% at threshold. My bike handling is something like 100% better. So I should be kicking ass, right?

You'd think so but my results are going further and further into the shitter.

It seems like I've discovered some new method of traveling between dimensions to go slower even though all indicators point to "faster." It's like if Kirk told Scotty to go to warp speed, and then time stopped. Maybe I'm doing okay but everybody else in my class has gotten a bit faster. Doesn't matter what the exact reason is, the net result is the same, I'm riding backwards.

So I was sitting there in an easy chair post race under the edge of the Family Bikes tent at the race today, coughing up chunks of some unspecified substance out of my lungs - it felt like chunks of bronchii - and trying hard not to vomit. And hating life. Absolutely hating it. This is not what I signed up for.

Sure, I can make excuses about horses for courses and all that but the fact remains I got my ass beat like a drum and have gotten it steadily beaten all frigging year so far, pretty much worse and worse each week, with the only real question being whether this week's beating was "bad" versus "really friggin' bad."

So I'm having a bit of a four o'clock in the morning moment tonight, and wondering if I have it in me to step up, basically, to a whole order of magnitude's worth of training effort and diet. Incremental improvement on an absolute scale is just getting my ass kicked incrementally worse, since the M 3/4 35+ field appears to be getting better across the board at a rate faster than I am improving. Results aren't the only thing I measure success by but they are the primary indicator and it would be nice to see *some* improvement there. It's not happening. It's going the wrong way. This is frustrating as hell.

Friday Fun Time

First some not fun. I've done two trainer workouts this week, including a simulated cross workout on the trainer. Other than enjoying the glories of my Kurt Road Machine w/t Rock & Roll Base (still an excellent, excellent choice) I can say definitively, I'd rather be riding outdoors. But the kid is sick, I'm working from home and caretaking, and the weather has been spotty. So it's onto the trainer. This is a good thing though, and I'm sitting on the Cone of Smugness right now, because I've never been able to keep up my riding when the outdoor riding has been difficult or non-existent. I don't even resent getting on the trainer lately. Something has changed for the better. Maybe it's having a better trainer, maybe I'm just getting used to the discipline. Oh, I still suck. But I am training more consistently and surely that has to pay off in some way. Right? Right?

Oh nevermind. You're just here for the videos.

But first, open another window and go register for the Tacchino. I swear to God, if you people don't show up in record numbers, I will eat the whole Suitcase of Sausage myself. [Ed. Stand back - I think he's serious!]. Seriously. It's going to be a great course, and we're setting it up to make it very spectator friendly, perfect for an outing. Plus, for a limited time only, you can register for the low, low price of only $20, and even less if you're a junior.

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

You all remember this, right? Devo was a Mark Mothersbaugh gig.



What has Mothersbaugh done since whipping it, whipping it good? Just this:



This is akin to finding out that Johnny Ramone was a conservative Republican. Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's just not what you would have expected.

While I'm waxing new wavey / new agey, check out Kate Miller Heidke, with Words.


Words

† Bianca.Bio-Hazard † | MySpace Video

Nice, huh? I don't know why but I do like that. The profile of what looks like Dolly Madison on the front of her mini piano is interesting... maybe she's obliquely a fan of Aaron Burr? She has a pretty good sense of humor so it's possible.



Now that's hilarious.

Anyhow, she's apparently done some shows with Ben Folds and is on tour now, hitting Madison WI on October 30th - I know I have a bunch of readers there so if you like it might be worth checking out a show. She gets rave reviews.

Some Housekeeping

I'm at home with a sick Son of Rouleur today and while he's sleeping I figured I'd do some administrative stuff. Like actual work.

I'm taking a break right now and wanted to discuss products a bit. From time to time, people send me stuff to review. Most of the time, I buy the kit I discuss. Once in a while it comes to me free from the Gam Jams network, or elsewhere. I don't get paid to review stuff though.

You need to know that I give my unvarnished opinion of any products I discuss here. I think that's pretty clear if you read my reviews. Given that the FTC thinks that my getting a free Aspen Cool Collar (MSRP: $ 14) is an actionable violation of some nebulous standard or something, I'll disclose from now on if I'm getting something from somebody for free. It does not happen often, but you'll know when it does.

Along those lines, I recently turned down an offer to host web ads for off shore gambling and an apparently legit business being flogged by the same ad agency. I asked about the legality of it, since I know off shore gambling is a sketchy enterprise from the U.S. Government's point of view. The ad guy pointed out that it's illegal to gamble via internet within the U.S. but it's not illegal to advertise off shore gambling.

He had a point there, but I wasn't really interested in tip toeing up to the edge of legality, and I wasn't really interested in making a profit, even a derivative one, on off shore gambling. This blog is a place where I can come to unwind a bit and unburden myself of what's on my mind, and to be a little bit creative after working 10+ hours in a job where my creativity and personality are almost completely submerged. A little profit from that would have felt pretty nice, but it's not why I do this. It seemed to me that all y'all might find that interesting.

Blech.

* Son of Rouleur appears to have H1N1, according to the doc. She's reasonably certain since he had his regular flu shot some weeks back. So, having watched the news with us, he asks Wife of Rouleur today, "Am I going to die?" You know, more information is sometimes a good thing, but in life, there are things that you don't want to know, and you don't want others, particularly little people, to be obsessing about. Transparency is a wonderful thing but the fact is, nobody knows WTF H1N1 is going to do, and the search for a cozy and false certainty about the future is a fool's errand. Getting mad because Teh Authoritahs don't know, and expecting Teh Authoritahs to tell you something definitive about the future when they don't know, is a waste of energy. And it makes the women, horses and children nervous. Not to mention the Rouleurs.

* Jillian Michaels, UeberTrainer from The Biggest Loser, is getting a new television show of her own. Presumably, it will be called Yelling at Fat People. Based on her Biggest Loser performances, I'm sure she'll be good at it, but not as good as my boss, my wife, or the guy I shoved at Granogue last weekend.

I'm Dashing, Tasteful And Romantic at Home

* I actually like The Biggest Loser. Yeah, it's a bit of eating disorder voyeurism. But it's a bit inspiring to see people get control of one aspect of their lives that has obviously been driving their health and self esteem into a ditch. As a rule, "reality shows" suck. This one is sometimes a bit uplifting. And believe me, I *totally* sympathize when I see that 500 pound dude sweating his ass off on the bike. I'm nothing near his league, but I sure feel it when I'm doing a hill ride.

* The Tacchino preparations are coming along nicely. The team tent area is going to be pretty sweet, lying betwixt pits and registration, vendor and bathrooms, hell and high water. I think we're going to call it Skid Row. I'm already toying with putting traditional rivals near each other, or perhaps slipping a panther into C3's tent city as they are warming up. I'm also going to throw a wrench at FatMarc, and advise him, "If you can catch a wrench, you can catch Auer."

* Seriously though, this is going to be a flowy course but you're going to need a bit of courage, just as the old Tacchino course required in a few of the higher speed turns. There's one turn on it that has the same basic layout as the big turn on the tower hill at Granogue. Except it's a blind turn with trees obscuring your view, and if you don't rail it you're going to have a painful slog through tall grass, and maybe have to run up the kicker at the end of that. My core belief about cross courses is that they should be fair to the rider - reward work and courage, punish indecision, and and ensure the vendors are selling high quality beer.

* Say what you will about Jim Zorn the coach, but Jim Zorn the man appears to possess great strength of character. Upon being stripped of many of his coaching responsibilities by the nuttiest owner in the NFL, he told the press it is his job now to figure out how to help the Redskins win, and that this is no time to quit. I doubt I could show the same strength of character under the same circumstances. Oddly enough, Zorn was one of my childhood heroes. The early game where I grew up was always either Giants and/or Bills. The late game was usually a west coast game, either Seahawks or Chargers. The Seahawks were an exciting team to watch, incomplete clubs, but Zorn, Steve Largent and Curt Warner were always entertaining to watch. As much as I liked him as a gunslinging quarterback, I think I respect him more as a man now.

You Don't Sweat Much For a Fat Girl...

I've been having a weird week on the bike so far. How weird? Well...

Today, there was limited time to get the workout done mid-afternoon. So it was off to the Cap Crescent because the workout called for some sick uphill big ring low cadence intervals to do, and that can be done on the Crescent, going uphill, if it isn't too crowded. On the way across town, I passed a cement truck, and as I passed the thing blew a load of cement spray into my face. WTF? Is this like a porno for cement trucks or something? I was waiting to see if I was the victim of a Punk'd prank or something similar, but no MTV celebrities appeared to laugh at me. A hot chick on the corner of 17th and Eye did, but I don't think she was in showbiz. I had no comeback here. Nothing. Not to the truck, not to the girl who apparently saw what went down.

After knocking out career best 3 minute power figures 5 or 6 times rocking it uphill on the Crescent, I headed down to the Point to do 20 minutes of threshold. I was a bit froggy and was going around the point at about 40 watts over threshold for about 10 minutes or so (yes, this hurt). At the outset, I passed a Fred who was moving at an okay clip, then with a clear road tried to settle in to a steady wattage. I try desparately to keep the effort hard and steady and smooth, and was rewarded with good looking power numbers, really good. It occured to me then that even though my legs were aching already, maybe I could realize a career best 20 minute power, something in the 380 realm. So I kept it at about 25MPH heading into the cross/headwind, and about 27-28 heading slightly out of the cross/head wind. I blew huge snot rockets at one point. At another spot, I coughed out a softball of crap and just blew it sideways, ignoring the under-the-arm trick. After getting up to the end of the point, I turn the corner to do more and I notice that the Fred I passed earlier was wheelsucking me for dear life, hanging out in my blindspot apparently for the whole lap, minus the stretch from Memorial Bridge. "Dude, for somebody your size," he say, "you ride really well." I wasn't sure whether to punch him out, ask if he had any extra food on him (so I could beat him with it then stuff it up his ass), or to just tell him, "for a skinny guy on a bike, you sure are a weak rider." I decided to say something about how hills still sucked, then tried to turn left to get back to the office, cutting the interval off at 13. So I say, "I'm turning left." Fred keeps talking. "I'm turning left," I say. I pull out ahead of him at the intersection by the tennis courts and go, "I'm turning left." He speeds up and starts turning into me, so I squirt ahead a little and get out of there as fast as I could go before he could crash me out.

Is it just me, or is everybody plain going nuts? I'm just sayin'. . . .

Granogue CRP

Pat Blair stacks it where I did, same way I did. Picture by Matt McCluskey.

In most races there is a moment that defines the race and maybe the whole day for you. My moment at Granogue came, as it does most years, on off camber hill in front of the tower that is the course’s signature landmark. I was a ways back in the pack, probably somewhere around 45th or 50th in a field of maybe 65 or 70 starters. The field was tougher than usual; 41 degree temps, gusting winds up to 30 and rain that ranged from drizzle to medium downpour kept the soft people at home. I was unspeakably amped up for this race, and much to my amazement kept contact with a long string of riders through the first lap and a half.

In the middle of the second or third lap, I got to the top of the ridiculously brutal walk up (even the pros couldn’t truly run the damn thing) and was hyperventilating extremely badly, literally going cross-eyed at that point. I decided it was time to ease off just a touch, before I had a heart attack. I’ve never hyperventilated in a cross race before, only puked. I was breathing like a wild animal being chased by a pack of hounds and my heart was pounding. It wasn’t nice.

I came around the feature behind the tower, pedaled back uphill and then turned left down into the swooping off-camber. Unlike the first lap, where I held a high line and railed it, I tried to hold a middle line and drop from the inside of the turn (high) to low, to pick up speed as I descended and to go into the next section on the gas. This was a bad choice and my front end tucked under almost immediately. I had some speed when the front went under and yardsaled over the bars Superman-style, landing flat on my stomach and scuttling like a salamander in 6” deep slop. Picking up speed as I slid down the hill, my arm hit something – a rock, a root, a dead rider from the C race – and I spun around a bit. Then I was sliding feet down the hill for a ways. Eventually, the rugby cleats in my shoes caught some solid-ish ground, I stopped, clawed myself up to my knees, and started to toe-run back up the hill to my bike. I dug the handlebars out of the mud, punched the STI back into position and remounted, listening to laughter and cheers from the large crowd. I didn’t even look up, didn’t see a single human face through this part of the hill, I just kept going and tried to ignore the stabbing pain in my shin and the mud in my mouth. Recounting this, it seems like it took minutes to lose traction, faceplant, slide and recover, but it only took a second or two. An intense ride, focus, a test of skills and fortitude… that’s what it was about this year. That bobble defined the race for me.

The racing itself was pretty good. I kept in contact with a long string of guys for most of the race, getting isolated a bit on the third lap; I just can’t keep traction pedaling in mud uphill. Downhill is a different matter though and I could pass just about anybody on the sloppy downhills and flats, sliding wildly along, not hitting the brakes, powersliding around turns. It was *awesome*. The slop got to me eventually though, utterly clogging my cassette and derailer, causing constant ghost shifting and forcing me to do a couple very long runs to get to the pits to avoid breaking the chain. When I got there, Nystrom was in the pits – but I didn’t have a spare bike. Not wanting to get DQ’ed (can a racer go into the wash pit? I didn’t know…) I asked him if he could step off the course into the wash pit and get me a quick wash and he did – but while I stood there several guys I’d put to rest came back to life and passed me. Nystrom came back with my bike, tossed it to me and I got going, passing back a few of the guys who had just passed me, but getting passed by the race leader as I got out of the pits. When I got to the big off camber hill I ran the thing, and passed a guy who was riding it tentatively. Yes, I outran somebody who was actually riding. Down onto the tarmac and I was pulled since the leader had finished, and I finished around 60th, a bummer placing considering how well I’d been riding, but that shifting issue had killed me. I wasn’t unsatisfied with the result; I knew it was going to be tough and not suited to me, but didn’t care. The goal was to leave it all out there. I know damn well I couldn’t have done any better on the day – not unless I’d brought my spare bike anyhow.

Bill Schiecken took some amazing video of my race - and BTW, if you're not checking out his blog regularly you're making a big mistake. I feature prominently in the first half of it until he dispatched me. My large ass is right ahead of the camera for or just next to it for a half lap and at some point I'm probably shoving the cameraman out of the way in a turn. Sorry Bill! Didn't mean to be a dick there, I was just getting flogged by those damn bushes, and picking up a ginormous splinter in my hand. The video does a brilliant job of capturing the flavor of the race, and the impromptu mud on the lens effect, while blurring, is about what my vision was like during the race, since I had mud on my own lenses throughout the race. And in my mouth, and ears.



Pure sweet hell there, eh?

The rest of the day was stellar. After cooling down on the trainer, I changed into a bunch of wooly clothes, and enjoyed our encampment with a popup, camp stove, French press coffee and jambalaya, sharing some with Micah, Jon Ivins and Lindsey, and I guess with the DC MTB guys too. We spent time cheering for people riding by, drank some beer, and eventually hit the course to cheer and heckle, bringing hip flasks of bourbon and tequila with us. We watched every rider in the B race stack it on the off-camber hill except for this kid from Rutgers with madd skillz. Seriously - we must have seen 85 dudes eat crap on that hill. I bought a pink FiZik Arione from Beth Mason, which was cool. During the A race, at the runup, I told a staggering Barry Wicks that he looked so damned bad, it just wouldn’t be right for me to heckle, and he started laughing so hard he almost came to a complete stop. I offered lapped riders whisky handups. We pushed stuck cars out of the mud in the big parking field Then we drove back home, waving to every crosser we passed on I-95 with muddy bikes atop their VA, MD and DC plated cars. There were a lot of smiles.

My friend Trevor put it really well today when we were talking about the race yesterday. He said, “of all the racing experiences I’ve ever had, that may have been the best.” I know my accounts are sometimes a bit hyperbolic, but I think Trevor nailed it. Conditions conspired with DCCOD’s superb course and smooth race promotion to make for a perfect racing day. It was grueling, unsparing, painful, and uncompromising. It was the maximum voltage you could put across all the circuits for 8 hours. If we lived in Plato's Cave, all the other races would be shadows of cyclocross. This one would be the cyclocross race we see when we leave the cave and experience reality. It was simply mind blowing.

Mountain Biking Endangered on Vast Tracts of Federal Land

Save the Earth - Screw Over a Mountain Biker!

There is so much going wrong in this that I'm not even going to lecture you about it. The bottom line is a lot of people want to accrue a whole lot of power, and that any old excuse will do. If saving the children isn't the excuse, then saving the smelt will work well enough. Too often we think about right/left divides but the real divide is between those who think about the state as a genteel big brother, and those of us who think about the state - any strong central power - as Orwell's Big Brother.

The term you're grasping for, is "statism." It's a mild-to-moderate form of that derangement of the sense known as authoritarianism. I joke about hippies sometimes but there's a lot to be said for holding as a virtue the notion that everybody should do their own thing and get off each other's backs.

Random Stuff

If there was a cyclocross song, it'd be sung to the tune of Rock & Roll Pt. II, and the lyrics would be:

Na naa naa naa na naa, HEY! It's Cyclocross!

And that's all, nothing more. You'd just sing that like 50 times, get totally hammered, and that's it. It would be enough.

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I bought some Wellingtons at WalMart today to keep my feet dry tomorrow. Guess they don't fit quite right. Looks like it's going to be Sorels for post race footwear. They'll do, I guess - but the canvas uppers are a bear to clean. Guess I'll do that when I'm weeping over the state of my bike. Salty tears are always the best option for cleaning your gear, post-race.

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With Halloween coming, it's important to practice your zombie killing skills. You can do that here. Sure, they're going to get you in the end, but you can take some of the bastards with you, right?

Then again, maybe those aren't zombies. It's possible they're just worn out from recent muddy cross races. I'm just like that after a cross race, except I crave beers, not brains. To each his own.

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I knocked out 90 minutes on the trainer this morning, with a little bit of tempo as pre-race openers.Riding the trainer blows but I need to train just about every day. Damned if I'm going to fall apart starting in the middle of the cross season, the way I do most years. It's been too tough of a fight back from the foot surgery and chronic ankle problems, to just give away those hard earned gains. The words of Dame Thatcher to Bush 41 just prior to the first Gulf War give me some motivation here: "Now's no time to go squishy, George."

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Now for something completely different, from Big Mike.



Wow. Bet that's got Prithviraj Kapoor rolling over in his grave.

The weekend is coming up. I just finished up the first hour of trainer time. What could compel a man to wreck a perfectly good evening on the trainer?

Well, it's time for some wicked Psychocross at Granogue and you can't show up with tight legs. You have to try to put out at Granogue. Granogue is magic. It's one of four races I do each year that makes the scene for me. Seriously - Granogue is 25% of the reason why I torture myself all summer.

What makes it good? Like the phantom itch you get on your shin from that time you crashed and gouged up your leg last spring, you know something's there but you can't quite put your finger on it. There's the venue for one thing. It's magic and utterly aesthetically pleasing, even when you look at it cross-eyed and there's vomit welling up from your stomach. The mix of people is amazing. You don't have many of the early season flotsam you get at Charm City. If they're racing now, they're mostly hard core crossers, an endlessly amusing group of people to hang with. Then there's the beer. And barbecue, which is solid for a crew from Philly. And maybe Kim's brother's amazing funk band, the New Kings of Rhythm. And I guess they're going to have some mud, something we haven't seen at the cross race in a few years, but which the MTB race taught us has just the right percentage of peanut butter clay to make a living hell out of the joint. Then there's the pros and serious amateur elite riders hanging out. Maybe Richard Sachs will show up with a dozen riders and 24 burgundy colored bikes, all of which could hang in MOMA and nobody would bat an eye.

Doesn't matter what makes it special though. What matters is that it is special. So get your ass to Granogue tomorrow, and race. Or if you don't race, hang out and spectate. Make the scene. It's worth it.



Yeah, it's time to shake everything you got.



That course is hard to handle.



You want to win there, better ride it like you stole it. The competition is always tight.

High Zoot Moots

Seibold told me a couple weeks ago there was maybe a chance to ride some Moots demo bikes at Patapsco or maybe on the road, and he asked if I was interested. Long time readers know that the Moots Vamoots is on my list of dream bikes, so I jumped at the chance. Jon said the Moots rep would be in town on Tuesday, and he'd let me know details. We didn't know what the deal would be - Jon said just bring my pedals to work and be ready to roll. When I got the call Tuesday at 1:30 PM, telling me to meet the crew at Patapsco, I was on it like trouble on an NFL wideout.

When I met up with everybody at Rockburn Park, I was pleasantly surprised to meet Jon Cariveau, who had just made some big ripples at the Providence 'Cross Fest, taking (I believe) a 3d and a 1st in the Elite Masters races. He was driving a sprinter van with 20 Moots bikes hanging in the back, maybe $140k of handbuilt Ti masterpieces.

I wasn't sure what I'd be riding, and when Jon C asked what I normally liked riding, I told him, "Redline Monocog Flite - long, tall, hardtail 29'er, with a Reba fork." Jon wheeled out a geared Moots Mooto-X YBB and said, "here - you'll like this." The Mooto-X 29'er is Moots' big Cross Country rig. It's light, tall, and simple looking, buffed out Ti purposefulness. It had the YBB rear suspension on it, a pivotless semi-hardtail that relies on a short shock built into the wishbone atop the seatstays to provide an inch of suspension travel, flexing the chainstays a little bit due to the pivotless design. The Mooto-X also had a primo set of Reynolds carbon rims on it. Seibold said something about the bike having been the catalog photo shoot bike.


At this point, I was sportin' wood just about, and I asked Jon C if he was worried about the wheels. "No worries. Just ride it." Jon C is mercifully unaware of my reputation as the biggest destroyer of gear this side of Optimus Prime.

After getting the pedals, seats, stems and air pressure dialed in, we rolled out through Rockburn Branch and down toward Morning Glory. It was odd having gears... Nice, definitely easier to go fast in the flats. But weird. I'm not used to it and it made little climbs and the usual clumsy bits more difficult to think my way through, since I was busy keeping it in the optimal gear, and actually going slower. Not a bad thing... just not what I'm used to.

As we got up to speed, the only thing I didn't like is the front end was a little whippy and flexy, and somewhat light. I suspect this was because I hadn't gotten the shock fully dialed in - I like a bit of sag, stiff-ish compression damping, and a lot of rebound damping - a slow rebounding front end that tends to be stiff and a little slow to compress, focused on catching the big bumps and letting the tires handle the little bumps. Can't say why, it just suits my riding style and lets me ride faster. The front end was also real flexy - those rims were a bit too soft for me, and coupled with a regular quick release and a beautiful Ti stem, it just didn't provide the kind of stiffness I'm used to. I adapted by hunkering into the middle of the cockpit and trying to steer more with my ass and foot pressure on the pedals, and less with my hands.

After a little while, I quit worrying so much about the wheels. They were pretty stout, if flexy. The Mooto-X with an 80mm Rock Shox Reba handled like a dream. It was super responsive - not twitchy, just scalpel-like. The YBB was pretty dreamy too. The bike handled, basically, like a hardtail, with the YBB taking the edge off the sharpest bumps. I railed some rock sections that usually give me trouble. On the Redline, the rear would be kicking up and the seat hitting me in the butt. On the Moots, the kicking was reduced by an order of magnitude.

Climbing was also pretty damn amazing. I used the small chainring and the full range of casette gears to climb, and the middle chainring too. It was weird climbing slowly and spinning up hills I normally rail up, and it was also weird getting to sections that are normally hike-a-bike on the single, and slowly riding up them, the front wheel lifting off the ground with each pedal stroke.

We hit a bunch of trails up on top between Morning Glory and the Ridge Trail, and then dropped down one or the other (can't remember) into the valley. Jon C seemed pretty impressed with the trail system at Patapsco, and after we stopped for water we crossed the Swinging Bridge to go up Vineyard (my favorite climb at Patapsco), across the ridge, and down Soapstone. Then it was back over the river and up Cascade, which was a total leg burner. At this point, my legs were blown and I started to be a drag on the group, so I eased up a bit, used the gears, and saved some of my energy. The gears were nice here because the energy I saved went to propelling me at something approaching the group's speed back toward Rockburn Park.

The surprising thing was that the Mooto-X stuck to the trail like crazy. Despite the taut, not-quite twitchy handling, it turned better than its rider was capable of turning and did so in a very stable manner. I kept reflexively dropping a leg at corners, at places where I would normally skid my Redline around a turn, but the Moots just clung to the ground letting me go faster than I could have gone otherwise.

When we got back to the parking lot I was sad to have to turn the big bike over to Jon C. It was such a pleasant ride, and so nice to climb on, that my other bikes will suffer by the comparison. It also changed my philosophy on 29'er frames - it seems you can make a nimble handling 29'er. The thing felt uncannily like my old Kona Cinder Cone, a tiny, BMX-bike like rigid 26'er.

As we wrapped things up, I asked Jon about the reliability of the frames - I've heard about a lot of 29'er frames breaking on the downtube near the head tube, and noticed that a lot of hard riding 29'er fans stick to cheap frames, and they break a lot of frames but don't cry about having to replace them.

Jon explained the manufacturing process Moots uses, talked about their commitment to using top quality materials and his longstanding involvement in improving build quality. He also said magic words, telling us that Moots offers a lifetime warranty, and if the frame breaks, they are happy to throw it out, to recycle the titanium, and send the rider a new frame. Now this got me interested. While he was at it, he discussed custom fabrication to meet a particular rider's needs, asking me about my particular issues with frames and suggesting that if I go Moots, that I consider using large diameter frame tubes to get enough stiffness in the frame.

This demo ride put a bike on my radar I wasn't really considering. Shoot, $3200 for a basic frame, $3600 with the modified tubing (and then a choice between sliders, or an eccentric bottom bracket so I can roll single speed if I want) is a lot of money.

But the damn thing rode soooo nice, it was so responsive and smooth and predictable, and I know the front end flex would be fixed with oversized metal bars, a Thomson stem and a stiff wheelset. And the lifetime warranty is an insurance policy against the usual major frame problems a 29'er might get. Having seen a couple heavy, stout low dollar frames fail, I think a warranty is a necessity on a nice featherweight bike like this, unless you have money to burn.

The bottom line is that I'm strongly considering buying one of these badboys. I've ridden four or five other 29'ers, and the Mooto-X is in a whole 'nother league from those $400 - $1000 framed bikes. The bike was so nice to ride, and that warranty is gold, making it clear to me it would be worth the money... a fact I thought about as I pedaled this flyweight puncher up some huge climbs at Patapsco that I'd normally have to jog partway up, dragging my (now slow handling and piggish feeling 27 pound) bike up the hill.

I think Seibold has a few demo bikes in his shop that potential customers can ride. If you're curious about Moots, you should hit him up for a test ride. I wouldn't recommend buying one without trying it first, but if you decide to try one, be advised that it will feel really good and there is a strong possibility that you will be thinking about buying Moots by the time you're done riding it. The Mooto-X was that damn good.

GamJams Reviews: Training Logs - Training Peaks WKO +

WKO+ - the ultimate evolution of the Cycling Peaks training log and the ongoing embodiment of Hunter Allen and Andy Coggan's (and maybe Allen Lim's?) research into training with power, is what I use. Their programming includes the work done by earlier luminaries such as Tudor Bompa, Joe Friel and many others; it also advances the state of the art in bicycle training. It tracks how hard you worked, how far you went, what your body was doing while you did it, how your general fitness level is coming along, how fatigued you are, and what kind of work you are capable of putting out before muscle failure. In addition to being compatible with a whole range of power meters, you can enter workouts manually (to handle those rides for which you don't have a Powertap) and you can enter non-cycling workouts as well. Learn what the simple charts in the program signify, and you'll understand that WKO+ can also tell you when to rest, and it will teach you how to taper for an event, exactly what kind of work you need to do to achieve a particular cycling benchmark, or how much gas you have to pull of a break or a sprint in a race. It's a training log, but it tells you so much more than an old mileage log and a pencil ever could. Thing is, your body and your mind will lie to you. But you can't lie to a power meter, and your power meter can't lie to a training log that knows your body better than you do. Do you want to feel like you're getting better, or would you rather know whether you're improving? Would you like to guess at what your weak spots are and try to work on fixing them, or would you rather know exactly where you're weak, and know for a fact you are doing work to remedy them?

I've spoke about Cycling Peaks and Coggan & Allen's Training With Power a hundred times. There may be better ways to get fit, but the working man isn't going to have access to them. People don't believe me when I tell them how useful a tool WKO+ is when paired with a power meter, and I'm not going to get into all the nitty gritty of why that is so. Suffice to say, if you want to get better efficiently, there is no better way to do so than training with power. Training with power is the vehicle that will get you to your racing / touring / general riding goals. WKO+ gives you a road atlas to guide you along the way.

Ora viene il Tacchino!!!!!

I spent the day at Rosaryville with the Dirty Coppis, putting together the basic layout of the Tacchino. It was my third or fourth scouting trip, and I'm starting to think we have a winner. It's about 35 minutes from Arlington, probably closer for most of you NoVans than Leesburg was, and man, is this course ever going to have some nice flow to it.

This is a rough draft of the course - it's subject to change, and we will no doubt be adding a bunch of little features. But here are the key things we are pretty sure will be built into the course.



A. Start - uphill on pavement.

B. The Dirt Track Date - The Figure 8 section starts with a double track climb through the woods. Continues with...

C. System of a Down - high speed off camber right hand grass downhill sweeper. With every turn you'll tempt your fate...

D. Fun Up at the Run Up - we're gonna have to pick you up off the ground. You can ride this one... maybe... if it's dry. Then check out the competition riding past you onto the dirt track climb.

E. Possible double-sided pit location. Or not, if we can find a better spot.

F. The Gravity Cavity - a short, sharp dirt track roller you take at full speed. Consider leaving the 16 spoke wheels at home on this one, Jeb.

G. Finish line - uphill on pavement.

H. Volunteer parking, and parking for 1 team vehicle, bathrooms and washpit area. If you're bringing a tent or a van / team truck with major gear (Paging Team Fuji...) let us know ahead of time and we'll reserve you parking for one vehicle and a primo spot to set up your team tent. Even if your team is "me, five buddies, a popup and a cooler." Go large, bring chairs, spend the day - but be advised, the exit is blocked during races, so you'll have to wait until intermissions to get out.

I. Registration, Sausage Frites & Beer stand, pavilion, heckling, and fun. Pineapple Alley Catering will have sausage & frites for $7 for the pair (less when sold a la carte) and Ommegang Hennepin Ale.

J. Racer Parking 1.

K. Racer Parking 2.

XXX. Off Limits Environmentally sensitive field experiment w/t native grasses. Park management is *extremely* serious about keeping people out of there. Walk or ride to registration on the path immediately adjacent to the woods (it will be marked) or down the road, because if we catch you doing anything in the tall native grass, we will DQ you, no questions asked. We love you, but nobody messes with our weeds and bugs.

Get in on the fun. Register here and guarantee yourself a starting position.

Regrets, Frankie

Sometimes I regret saying some of the things I say. This photo essay tossing darts at Frank Vandenbroucke is a pretty good example of that. Vandenbroucke's death marks the passing of a guy who was pretty seriously mentally ill, in my amateur opinion. I've come around to that view on further reflection. He wasn't just somebody with an addiction, which would have been solely his responsibility at some level, but a guy who, from the sounds of it was damaged goods. The many addictions and, well, utterly insane behaviors, betrayed the existence of a serious underlying mental infirmity. It was cheap of me to score laughs with it. Pity and empathy are human emotions and sometimes they are not only more appropriate than ridicule, but the only appropriate response. I missed the bus on that. Sorry Frank. Requiescat in pace.

Hyattsville CX

Have you ever been to a really fun, well put together grass roots event that makes you remember why it is you like doing what you do?

It can be catching your favorite jam band - say, Rusted Root or Dave Matthews in a bar that's really too small to host them, on a day you didn't expect them, and they're just drinking Dogfishhead and rocking and talking to the crowd. If you like auto racing and you happen to catch some lower category dirt track NASCAR event on a Saturday night while you're traveling through the midwest or mid-North, and you see a bunch of amateur Bubbas tradin' paint, and fans hootin' and hollerin' over it, you know what I mean. If you are out for a walk one day and see the local Legion ball team playing hardball, and sticking it to the team from the next town over, and you notice, "hey, this pitcher is really, really good..." That's what today's race was like.

It's a new race, so I didn't know what to expect. I've raced against promoter Scott Cernich for a couple years and chatted with him now and then, he's a nice guy, and strong on the bike. The former Route 1 Velo / Capital Hill Bikes crew (now sponsored by Arrow bike shop) are good folks, putting on the long running Wednesday night training race at Greenbelt, and generally being a good humored club, just a solid, steady presence in the MABRA community. Good guys, the sort of club that as a Coppi, I can look at and see a bit of our ethos in. But what kind of a cross race would they put on?

My questions were answered when I showed up to Magruder Park in Hyattsville to pre-ride at 8:00 AM. The Park is located in a very nice section of Hyattsville that my wife and I had considered moving to a couple years ago, not far from Cheverly, a lovely area that has the kind of neighborhood feel that a lot of people really long for. The Park is flat, and the course was also flat, with minimal elevation changes, but they made good use of the little off-cambers that line the park like a bowl's sides, running the course up, down and across them repeatedly. The course twisted around a parking lot, a tennis court, a beer garden, and some light poles, and it had a Spiral of Death (Wissahickon vets will know what this is) to break up the back side. It also had a sand pit that was very rideable in practice (more on that later). Registration was low drag, as you'd expect from a club that has run a weekly race every Wednesday night for maybe 20 years.

The crowd of racers were pretty much all locals - most of the higher profile racers you'd expect in any given class, but few of the Philly / Richmond / Pittsburgh crew that you'd see at MABRA events and none of the NYC crowd that show for MAC races. There was a local barbecue vendor out of Bowie, MD, and buying a ticket to race meant you also got a free beer afterwards - either a Sierra Nevada draft or an excellent Dogfish Head long neck of one type or another. Race proceeds would go to benefit the Special Olympics of Maryland. Nice.

When we lined up for the B Masters (er, sorry, the 3/4 35+, old naming habits die hard) we had 45 or 50 racers on the line, a little smaller than the usual MABRA race but still a respectable showing for a first year race. I got a call-up that I meekly protested, based on promoter discretion. Cernich warned me I was getting a callup, so I wasn't shocked. I had thought I'd decline, but then noticed I had #215, which in addition to being the net weight of my lower legs when weighed in tandem, was low enough that I was going to start on the second row anyhow. So I took the callup. My teammate Steve Robinson was lined up directly behind me, and since he's No Shit Fast, I told him I was going to veer a little left at the start and that he should be ready to jet through when I did. (Sorry if I curbed you guys inside of me; I would throw myself teeth first onto the barriers if it would help a teammate or a friend reach the podium, so I didn't have a choice here).

At the start, Steve jetted through, and I tried to keep up. Usually I have a pretty good start, but the legs were feeling it after a long ride tempo ride Saturday with anaerobic efforts on the hills. This was a C race in the priority list so I didn't even try to come in fresh (not that it would have mattered much) but it was a shame to waste that gratuitous callup.

I settled into the main group pretty comfortably, until I blew a turn combo coming off the pavement - a left/right/left deal that just vexed me. I literally rode into the effing tape on the "right" portion of it. There goes three guys... I settled in again and tried to find a rhythm, getting through the "natural barriers" section in okay shape, but having trouble clipping in. There goes somebody else... and another guy, my friend James K., passed me going into the Spiral of Death. Not good, but we had a group of four or so, such that it seemed reasonable to stick in. Coming out of the middle of the spiral, James got totally out of shape, stalled, and tried to move to the outside very politely. I yelled at him - something about "there's no stopping here this is racing" or some shit like that. a few guys squirted by as I ran into him. We eventually got going but my Patton-esque joke on the line - "this is not a retreat, it's an attack in a different direction" became prophesy.

Once again, I found a rhythm with the group of 4 or 6, and was settling back in. Confession - I'd rather ride in a little group than in the main pack. I seem to attract trouble when I stick in a large group and find I can ride a lot better in a grupetto. So it went fine until I hit the sandpit. Having nailed it in practice, I knew I could just ride on through. I hadn't counted on 86 C racers, of whom 53 were certainly bewildered, chewing up the sand and churning it to a depth of 1.3 feet. I hit the sand at a high rate of speed having closed a gap to James K's wheel, and endo'ed.

If it makes you feel better, I'll say what happened in Flemish.

Ick was overkopt.

When I remounted and got rolling again, my grupetto was gone 35 yards or so up the road, and I was, where I was. I tried to move up for a couple laps but couldn't gain substantial ground. I did have some luck decisively dropping Bega, who had haunted me at Charm City, along with a small group of four or five guys racing around him. But I had no luck moving forward and raced alone for the next four laps and finished around 31st or so.

It wasn't a terrible performance - I was heading into the Spiral of Death when the announcer was discussing Steve Robinson winning the race (by 30 seconds... Rock on, Robinson!) Last year and earlier in the year at Charm City, I considered it a pretty stout performance if I didn't get lapped by the very front runners. Since Ed Sanders - admittedly a short time span, I haven't been lapped, and in this race, I was maybe a bit more than a half lap down.

Steve Robinson Takes Another One:
The Nicest Badass You'll Ever Meet

The whole field is getting faster though; my finishes are not improving relative to the field. Everybody is getting better. I think this is a good thing, although it doesn't do the ego any favors. And more good news - I saw a few pictures of me riding. The dieting is doing me a lot of good - I'm now merely Fat as F***, which is an improvement over "Oh My God I Hope He Has A Thomson Seatpost and Isn't Riding on Carbon" Fat.

I spent the rest of the day cheering for teammates. Ken, Peter and Scott manned up bigtime and rode a second race, the A Masters alongside Steve, Coppis managed podiums in the C and B races, and JeanBean turned in a great performance taking a third in Women's Elite. My kid enjoyed racing the Li'l Belgians - a lot - and it was great to see local folks from Hyattsville and Cheverly coming out and entering their kids in the Li'l Belgians race. It's not just for bike racers' kids any more... The beer was tasty and cold, the food nice, and the atmosphere...

Well, it was perfect. If you've raced a little bit of cross you know some races just hit you where you live. There's something special about it when the promoters and racers get it right; they create a warm fuzzy blanket of suffering and fun and silly behavior and bicycles and just everything there is to love about 'Cross. Scott and the Arrow Bikes crew managed that yesterday, and the great day they created will be one of the standout memories of this season for me, when I look back next August and think about which races to commit to.

Thanks for a great day, guys.

Surely, You're Joking, Mr. Feynman

And just a friendly reminder: Saturday is Cross Day. It's also Rugby Day. Get thee to a pitch, and spectate if you have a chance. And have a cold one. Kinda makes me wonder why we haven't held a cross race in conjunction with a rugby tournament. If you know the cultures of the two sports, it seems like it'd be a natural pairing.

NSFW:

Friday Fun Time. Sorta.

Reader Terrible Terry, whom I understand to be merely a little bit execrable, rather than actually terrible, indicates his disappointment in the conceptual piece immediately below this blog entry, in which I mocking out Twittering as a vapid art form that tends to inspire its practitioners to give us *wayyy* too much information.

Instead, Somewhat Execrable Terry indicates that he comes here on Fridays expecting 80's music videos.

Wow.

I don't know what to say. Except...

Have at it!

There will be a test at the end.










So there you go. Four songs I kinda liked at the time or at least didn't mind (possible exception of that Foreigner song, which was inexplicably a hit). Four songs I'm kinda, sorta embarrassed about having liked. And it raises a question:

Which of these is the most vapid 80's song?
	Flock of Seagulls - I Ran (a story about foreign relations problems, I guess)
	Human League - Don't You Want Me (total stalker anthem)
	Foreigner - I Want to Know What Love Is (did the guys who did Double Vision really make this POS?)
	Mr. Mister - Broken Wings (That bird would be stew, if I had my way...)
pollcode.com free polls

Okay, and you suffered through all that... might as well give you something other than a headache. If you haven't seen this before... well... then you probably don't know any mountain bikers. Change out "Atlanta" for "D.C." and "SORBA" for "MORE" and it'll be a perfect fit.



Have a nice weekend, all. And get yer butts out to Hyattsville Cross.

My Day, If I Was on Twitter / or, Why I'm Not on Twitter

5:40 AM - is that the alarm clock, or is a Swedish iron worker shooting hot rivets into my ears?

5:41 AM - neither. Just a disturbingly bizzare homoerotic dream about a nordic clock factory. Phew. Thought it was time to get up.

6:00 AM: is that the alarm clock, or is it a homoerotic dream about a Swedish iron worker shooting hot rivets into my ears?

6:01 AM: just the alarm clock. Phew. I was starting to think I was... um... had a thing about Swedish factories.

6:15 AM: Forget to shave, a decision that will haunt me for the rest of the day's meetings with people who will look at me like a Balkan child molester. Spectacular BM though, and nice job brushing the teeth.

6:17 AM: Whew. Botched the toenail job. The one big toe nail looks like a circular saw blade, the other looks like... well... that's not supposed to be bleeding like that, is it?

6:31 AM: Downed bowl of Quaker Granola with Craisins. You don't think the spectacular BM's come from nowhere, do you?

6:33 AM: Second double of espresso. Look, I'm a junkie, I know it. I didn't come here for your pity or your buzzkill, alright man?

6:38 AM: Walked the dog. Dog looked at me like he hates me. Note to self: Stop slipping unused pain meds from foot operation into dog's food. Unsanctioned veterinary drug trials are not amusing.

6:39 AM: Oh, who am I kidding.

7:01 AM: 31 seconds of quality time with the wife, 34 seconds of quality time with the kid, bike on the truck, I'm outta here.

7:26 AM: Red and blue lights in the rearview. Wonder who that cop is chasing? Hey, didn't that anti-texting law go into effect on Wednesd... oh, shit.

7:38 AM: $265.

8:01 AM: Aaaaah, Hains Point for some intervals.

8:02 AM: Ugh. Hains Point for some intervals.

8:07 AM: That's enough warmup, isn't it?

8:10 AM: Why can't I achieve threshold power? It buuuuurrrrnnnnssss, Precious.

8:11 AM: The note I put on my stem says I'm supposed to sprint now for 15 seconds, then recover at threshold for 1:45, then go again. Okay. Here we go.

8:12.15 AM: That wasn't so bad! No sweat.

8:14 AM: Here we go again.

8:14.15 AM: Ooh, er, um, not so nice.

8:16 AM: And we're off again.

8:16.15 AM: WTF! Gng to Brf!

8:21 AM: Just ten more minutes!

8:23 AM: Fuck it. I'm going to work.

9:15 AM: Secretary looking at me funny. Perhaps I should change out of my team kit and into a two piece suit like everybody else in the office. I don't smell *that* bad...

9:23 AM: In locker room now. Only guy in here looks like some kind of Swedish ironworker or something. You don't think I'm... y'know... fixated on metalworking or something, do you?

9:50 AM: I'll just check out some blogs and stuff. Then I'll get right to work.

10:53 AM: Holy crap. Who knew Lennard Zinn wrote such interesting stuff about brake pad wear patterns, and what it says about the weave of yr. carbon fiber wheelset?

11:58 AM: Lunchtime! Sweet. Gotta beat the rush to the deli. Dieting, so watch what you eat!

12:43 PM: Crap. Should have skipped the footlong triple meat cheesesteak and the 32 ounce soda and gotten a salad. And the large fries. And that 12" oatmeal cookie was just excessive.

1:43 PM: Spectacular BM. Thanks craisins! Brushed teeth in men's room. Finally got the last of the basil out. Of the teeth, that is.

2:15 PM: Attend meeting. Boss introduces me to key client as "guy who rides bikes." Turns out, he races for NCVC and we punched each other out at DCCX last year in the first turn!

2:53 PM: Didn't get shit done in that meeting. Hooking up with Bob from NCVC for a lunchtime ride next week though. Cool.

3:15 PM: Getting close to closing time. Gotta get some work done.

3:23 PM: Wonder if they have an article about Stybar on Velo News. Haven't checked the site in nearly 4 hours now.

3:25 PM: No Stybar. But some news on Nys. Stybar - sounds like a painful eye condition. Nys - French existentialist principle meaning "speedy nothingness."

4:01 PM: Wonder if I could sneak out of here unnoticed. Probably ought to go to a team with more subdued kit like Route 1... bright blue Coppi stuff seems to get noticed by the staff.

4:04 PM: I don't think anybody will noticed that I've changed back into my kit.

4:25 PM: Commuter guy in office stops by to give me crap about being a racer. I give him crap about all the things he feels inadequate about in his life. Guess I am a racer...

4:47 PM: Close enough. I'm out of here.

5:01 PM: Cripes. How'd the boss know I was leaving. Now he wants a bunch of crap done by tomorrow. Man, I work like a slave. How the hell am I going to get all this shit done?

5:05 PM: Delegation, baby! And we're off to do a little recovery spin.

6:34 PM: Home. Man, should not have gotten sucked into that fast group at Hains. What was I thinking? My legs are shot. I'll need to rest tomorrow.

6:35 PM: What? My Powertap was off that whole time at Hains? They missed where I actually passed Butts briefly on the back straight during the recovery part (where I was L7?) Oh well, guess I can ride tomorrow. If there's no power file, the ride didn't happen.

7:10 PM: Glad I stuck to my diet so well. I rode so hard today, I don't think anybody will notice if I polish off that tub of Cherries Garcia.

7:13 PM: Or eat that pint of Wavy Gravy.

8:00 PM: Time to put the kid to bed. 'Honey, why do we have this scale in the bathroom? Let's put it in the attic."

8:24 PM: Google "Swedish" and "iron works." Hey, I'm just into industrial themed nordic stuff. Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

8:43 PM: Write blog post using hokey summarization-style narrative to expose brain-rotting caliber flaws in Twitter when used as an interpersonal communications device. Last known reader of this blog shoots self in head just to make it stop.

8:45 PM: Got to get going to bed early. More sleep = happier me, thinner me, better trained me.

9:01 PM: I'll just check out Bill Simmons' column compiling 90210 references in Simmons NBA columns over the years.

9:21 PM: Gotta hit Danzatap.

12:54 AM: WTF? I am so trd. Time to go to bed. Need to think up good blog post idea for tmrw. Current stuff brng redrs to dth.

They've Blown it Now...

You may have noticed that the blogging here has been light, the humor more odious than usual, the observations less sharp than the normal twinkie-edged wit you've come to expect.

This is because my club has made a fatal mistake. The consented to let me promote the annual cross race.

Okay, in fact, they didn't consent. When KenBob stepped down after being burnt to a crisp by the job last year, they were looking around for a promoter. I was really really drunk, and didn't notice everybody running from the room screaming. So I got left holding the bag. But enough about your mother. This is about the race.

That's right. The Tacchino is back, and it's going to occur, Lord willin' an' the crick don't rise, at Rosaryville State Park.

Fittingly, Tacchino means Turkey, which could describe the promoter or the event this year.



It's a new course, and it's going to be a good one. There will be...

Oh screw it. None of you want to know about the course. You know the course will be cool with some rolling hills, some twisties, one or two terrifying descents, one or two brutal little climbs, a bunch of off-cambers that you could crash on, and some horrifying dangerous feature that we'll mange to slip by the race officials.

No, what you want to know about - and don't ask how I know this, I just do - is whether the Suitcase of Sausage will make a return for mid-pack primes. The answer is...


Duh! Of course the Suitcase of Sausage is going to be there. What else can we give mid-pack prime winners, besides a hard time? Yes, before you ask, the Jason Pearlman Memorial Hebrew National Franks will make their return. I'm not sure about the other rewards, but rest assured, the Squadra will definitely be willing to show you their salami, brandish their sausage, and offer you a handful of wieners on raceday.

And what's better with sausage than Ommegang?

Nothing!

Except sausage, with Ommegang, and pommes frites, and cyclocross!

Did I say Ommegang? Why yes, in fact, I did.

Our good friends from Ommegang/Duvel/La Chouffe conglomerate will be sponsoring the masters class races, and providing products and some amazing swag for the podium finishers. And you guys? You'll be out there having a good time.

Pineapple Valley Catering, which operates special events at the Park, as well as running the amazing (and surprisingly affordable to rent) Mount Airy Mansion, will be grilling sausages for us, serving pommes frites with mayo, and selling beer.

I'll get details posted on the Bikereg site as soon as we finalize a few things. I think you'll be able to buy a ticket for food via Bikereg, and get a slight discount for buying ahead of time.

Cathedral

It's shaping up to be a good race, and I'm not just saying that.

So go here and get registered. And while you're at it bounce on over to the Hyattsville CX page and show them a little love too.

Random Crap

Okay, enough of that serious horsesh1t. Here's some fun.

This one is for my pal Fatticus Maximus Superbus.



Yeah, that's right. It's a bacon double cheeseburger on a buttered Krispy Kreme bun. [shiver]. Stevil ever sees this, he'll max, on the spot. As Stevil notes, Butter is Not A Snack... but when you combine it with burger, bacon and Krispy Kreme, it's part of a well unbalanced diet.

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I did my FTP test today. I have some ideas about what the F stands for. Great result, but according to the power/weight chart provided by Training Peaks, I have the power profile of a 4.

Not a Cat 4. A 4 year-old L'il Belgians racer. The chart also warned to stay away from the 6-8 year old age group. They'd crush me. The funny thing is that I wasn't even dreading the FTP test, and when I was doing it, it didn't even bother me how awfully it hurt. I was watching birds, and drooling snot from my nose, and checking out these women jogging by, and gasping, and waving to some cops, and noticing that my legs were burning... just totally dissociated from the Boiler of Old No. 97 action that was going on in the legs and lungs. So what's worse? Intentionally hurting yourself? Or not caring that it hurts? This isn't funny hah-hah, it's "funny-what-a-weird-bunch-of-MF-ers-we-are" funny.

Wow. That's deep. I think I need to eat a bacon double Krispy Kreme cheeseburger and think about it for a while.

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Check out this photo from the open Victoria's Secret Catalog tryouts held yesterday at Yankee Stadium. And check out New York's Finest checking out the ladies' catwalk strut New York's *fiiiinest*.

"Why am I holding my hat right there, Sarge? Um, no reason."

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That wasn't a Tsunami that hit Samoa... it was just Cadel Evans tears. I understand he still hasn't stopped crying about Worlds... his loss at them in 2003. He hasn't even gotten around to crying over missing them in 2004, missing the break in 2005, having a bum knee in 2007...

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Hey, check out this optical illusion. I did, then made the mistake of staring at my Irish Writers poster. Holy cripes, did Samuel Beckett ever look terrifying, more than usual perhaps. So did Sean O'Casey. I might have peed my pants looking at George Bernard Shaw. Joyce looked like Joyce probably looked to Joyce in the mirror, and Behan looked like he had a huge hangover and was pulsating. Jonathan Swift... well, looked pretty much like he always does, the stiff old bastard.

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Here, Seth Green reminds us why Showbiz People are our moral betters, and why we should listen to them when they tell us how we should live.



According to spiritual Seth's IMDB page, "God is, to me, pretty much an idea. God is, to me, pretty much a myth created over time to deny the idea that we're all responsible for our own actions."

Um, you mean, like being responsible for having a pants pissing tantrum, taking it out on the hired help, flipping a table and storming off like a 5 year-old? Okay. Thanks for the guidance, Seth.

I despise a lot of people, but as a group, showbiz people occupy a special shrine in my Cathedral of People I Can't Frickin' Stand. In a perfect world, Ted Nugent and Sean Penn would be locked in a box with Cheryl David and Oprah, and they'd be getting gnawed at by badgers. Alas!

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Seeing that it's football season again, it's good that Texas Tech is ringing the bell.

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And the cool thing is, since Texas Tech desegregated back in the day, they're okay with brothers doin' it too.

Man, that never gets old, does it?

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There is no truth to the rumor that David Letterman is planning to change the name of his production company to Worldwide NoPants, Inc. Maybe I'm missing his genius. If I'd spent 20 years fooling around with much younger women at the office, got caught, got near-blackmailed, and then spent the next week joking about it, my wife would shoot me, if my friends didn't do it first. Dave on the other hand? Great ratings! I don't know how he does it, but know that he must be doing something right. Besides the interns, anyhow.

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And this isn't funny... it's just damn good. Maceo Parker, horn man for James Brown, George Clinton, and his own damn self.



Here's a little more Maceo. This'll help you get over the hump today.