Monday, Bloody Monday...

This is the first time this year that I have faced Monday morning with slightly sore legs. That is a good feeling. Not just that, either. Over the weekend, I discovered my ass is really out of shape. No, I don't mean I'm fat and riding slow, although that would be truthful. I mean my ass isn't used to doing 2+ hours at a clip on the roadbike. I haven't ridden more than 2 hours straight on the road bike since perhaps early October, and my butt just isn't used to that narrow leather torture device we call a saddle. I would call the pain from my 2:25 and 95 minute rides exquisite if I was into that kind of pain, but I'm not so let's just call it excessive and overly detailed. I was reminded there are roughly 6 kinds of butt pain from the saddle.

1) Rub marks on the sit bones. Those are two dime-sized red raw spots that nicely mark out where your sitbones are, just in case anybody was back there looking around and wondering. With some luck - some bad luck - these ripen into saddlesores. I didn't ride enough to get these.

2) Sitting-on-nails pain you get right under the sitbones. Sometimes this is coincident with #1, but often it's an early season pain when you haven't ridden enough to beat the nerve endings into submission. It does indeed feel like a nail is half driven into each sitbone, and with each pedal stroke you drive it a fraction of an inch deeper. It goes away once your nerve endings cry uncle.

3) Monkey Butt. This happens when some combination of sweat, chamois cream, klingons, and your butt cheeks rubbing together make your Grand Canyon feel like Hell's Half Acre. It is characterized by an unsettling feeling that 'somethin' ain't right back there, I tell ya..." followed by tears when the soap hits the area in the shower. It is called monkey butt because, well...

Cyclists After an Early Season Long Ride

4) Taint Scrape. This quarter-sized raw spot on the taint is usually the result of low quality shorts, bib knickers that are a little too stretchy in the crotchal region, or bad bike fit. Taint scrape is noticeable because of the pinching feel the cyclist gets after about an hour in the saddle. It is as if tiny people with long fingernails were actually in the cyclist's shorts, pinching away at either side of the cyclist's taint. Which they are. Seriously, check sometime while you're riding. It's true. Until you've checked, you can't say I'm wrong.

5) Manscaping Failure. An epidemic among swarthy cyclists of Latin heritage, this involves forgetting to do the manscaping (or womanscaping? I can only hazard a guess) after which the bike administers a Brazillian Bikini Wax, one hair at a time, until the offending Crotchal Dreadlocks have all been plucked. The sensation is akin to being singled out in 9th grade to do an algebra equation on the blackboard in front of the class, except not as painful.

6) Scrotal Speed Bag Abrasion. Have you ever seen a boxer whacking a speed bag? That is what riding does to your Balzac when you ride. If you haven't ridden in a while, however, you have probably lost the leathery covering that normally protects your walnuts, reverting back to an almost human-like skin wrapper. The first few times you ride... well, you wouldn't buy an expensive leather sofa, then not clean and moisturize the leather, right? On the upside, you won't notice the searing pain until you remove your shorts and the Boys can roam free and explore the limits of their domain. On the downside, you will probably have to hop up and down with pain when they do hit the limits, so make sure when you take off your shorts that you're in a wide open space where you aren't going to hit and break delicate household objects, like the lawn in front of your house.

TOT 14: FBS Shop Ride

Saturday's ride was fun but it highlighted how out-of-shape I am. The threshold power was there in short 5 minute bursts, at a typical early season threshold level. The VO2 power was only there for 30 seconds at a time, and I had little ability to bounce back fast after those hard efforts. Managed a .87 IF for the ride, despite basically chugging in the last third in low L2 (except on the hills). Not thrilled, but still, I feel way ahead of where I've been at this point during past years. Thank you, TMR and Patapsco!

TOT 15: A Lonely Road

Rode solo on Sunday for 95 or 100 minutes. Stayed mostly in L2, came out of it with a .72 IF, which is what I was looking for. I had a lot of time to think about how much better I feel this year than last, and how nice it is to have a functioning back. I'm not looking to be in any kind of shape until late May, so this is the time to ease back into it.

I wonder how everybody else's early season training is going?

SST & More

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1. My scene is the 80's, today. Not sure if you and I had the same 80's though, musically speaking.

2. The first punk (post-punk) show I ever went to. They opened with this song and played the prelude for what seemed like 10 minutes at the old Lost Horizon in Syracuse. The crowd was screaming insanely when Jello finally started singing...

3. The Minutmen really did jam econo. Even their success was pretty small - their talent was pretty outsized though.

4. Love and Rockets struck me as super talented. Their musical style changed a lot with each album and it was pretty good every time.

5. I liked Husker Du. They were pretty good background music - never loved 'em, never minded 'em. If the 80's had a soundtrack for me, Husker Du would hold down the unremarkable sixth slot on the album. Listening to this I think maybe I missed out a little by not paying attention to them.

6. This is a great song, a crossover hit for Los Lobos. The politics implicit in the video are almost innocent compared to today's spittle flecked rhetoric.

7. This is the song that turned me on to music. My buddy Mark got the first Stevie Ray album and put it on the turntable and we listened to this first track together and just say there staring at each other going "holy shit!" and a bunch of other expletives. We played the first track about 10 times. I was about 15. The guitar playing just hooked me and after this I started exploring blues and jazz, and punk. Sorta missed a lot of the new wave stuff unless it was punky or had some interesting musical twist to it. I sort of followed the trail from him to Hendrix to Velvet Underground and so on, started following musicians around and seeing who played with whom, and basically exploring music the way I sometimes do here on Fridays. But Stevie Ray Vaughn is the guy to thank for it. If I'd never head this song and the album it was on, it's likely I never would have paid attention to or cared about music.



Just damn. The day his helicopter went down I was on field exercises in the Army. I found out about it around 2 in the afternoon and had to excuse myself from the Tactical Operations Center and go have a lie down in the dirt for a half hour to recompose.

Friday...

In honor of the Virginia Assembly, which killed a bill that would have required motorists to give cyclists a 3 foot clearance when passing:



For people in a hurry, despite the nice weather:





One for my friend Becky, who's kinda partial to old western themes:



Sure, Elmer Bernstein is no Ennio Moriccone, but he's pretty damn good anyhow. So's this guy who wrote a whole symphony about the old west.



Yeah, that's the Beef It's What's For Dinner song. It bears no relation to this song... except that both have been used to sell beef.

TOT 12: Seeing an Old Ghost

Ghost of Trainings Past

Clubs can pick their race kit by one of two means - by dictatorial fiat, or by democratic methods. Either way, the annual kit redesign on most teams result in a slapfight during which people say stupid things. One of the more regrettable aspects of this year's Annual Kit Slapfight is that a line got drawn between those who think how a kit looks on a commute or in traffic matters, and those who think that the safety issues associated with matte black black are irrelevant. Where the center mass of racers are 35+, and get a good chunk of their training done in traffic between home and work (either on a direct route, or with a diversion to Hains or their favorite hill), and a substantial portion of that training is done in the dark, it matters. I know that concession to reality, the admission that we aren't all in Girona doing daily rides the rest of the world would call epics, punctures the fantasy of "maybe I could ride at the TdF someday," but there it is. Team kit should look good and speak for the sponsors and club, but around here, it should also be high vis.

My commute is one of the more nervous rides I take; bouncing down BikeBreaker at Patapsco isn't nearly as nerve wracking as cruising through PG County on Goodluck Road at rush hour. There are a lot of rough stretches with potholes and no shoulder, and I'd give Lance Armstrong's remaining nut to have better visibility. No, dayglo orange isn't necessary; but I'm really glad my team kit isn't black. I haven't ridden the commute since September or October.

With some apprehension I did the commute with Fast As Schidt Sean yesterday. It had been a little over three weeks since I had done a serious ride. A combination of bad weather, my own wussification, and a couple lower thighs that are *still* purple and yellow had kept me just a couple short casual rides in the interim, and a single aborted MTB ride. (Stupid mud... not stupid trail ethics...)

I was shocked, but it wasn't that bad. My legs felt heavy, and there were places on the ride where we were way slower than last year, but at no point did it turn into the slog that it did last year the first few times we rode it.

Sean didn't do bad; it's pretty clear that he hasn't ridden for 3-4 months (refitting a kitchen will do that to you) and there were places that he normally likes to stick it to me, where he was obviously working pretty hard. But we kept decent speed up and it wasn't a death march as we'd both feared it would be. He very kindly gave me a knog light that goes in the spokes; that added to the taillight / headlight arsenal and gave some side visibility. It's not enough to make me comfortable, but it helps.

Some things were disorienting. I haven't spun steady state in six months. I had forgotten how that kind of effort, even at a moderate wattage level, causes major snottage and a peculiar burn in the legs you don't normally get mountain biking, except maybe on fireroads. I've also gotten conditioned to the Mountain Bike Temperature scale. Starting the ride in 24 degree temps had me expecting a relatively cold but basically comfortable ride; going at an endurance pace, an average speed of 17 MPH turned this into a frozen hell until the sun rose, and had me sitting at my desk shivering until 9:45. But it was alright and nice to be on that smooth, scalpel-like road bike again.

No, it's not the hardest commute in the world. It's only about 20 miles each way. But it is pretty hilly, dotted with constant rises, and there are a number of stretches on it where the traffic situation is dire and you have to ride threshold just to get out of the danger zone quickly. Sean is a fairly strong mountain biker and attributes a 1 hour improvement in his SM 100 time (to a fairly impressive sub-11 as I recall) to doing this commute a couple times a week over the summer.

The bottom line is that hitting the morning ride through December and most of January worked for me, even with the injury-induced layoff. My legs are about 6 weeks further ahead than they are most years at this time.

Oh well. Back in the saddle. I'm a bit behind my pace of looking for 180 rides this year, but I'll pick it up.

Whisky Slapfight: Rethinking the Whole Effin' Thing

So I'm going to have to rethink this whisky slapfight shootout.

Holy cripes, I'm sitting there yesterday at work trying to talk to my big boss - my boss's, boss's, boss's boss. And it's casual but we're in this little confined space, and I'm cracking jokes, and I'm oozing whiskey out of each and every fucking pore. Not bourbon, but scotch.

Here's a hint, drunks: stick to vodka. If you're a scotch drunk, everybody knows. And by "everybody," I mean everybody from West Virginia to Delaware, assuming you're standing in D.C.

Not like I've been getting hammered this week. I've just been getting a bit tipsy.

But man, am I getting old. Averaging 6 ounces of whiskey, 3 ounces of vermouth a night - and okay, I had a beer or two with dinner once or twice - is killing me.

I'm not getting hammered. Let me repeat that. Hammered Jim is Sleepy Jim at the end of a workday.

Nope, just tipsy. And I'm starting to stink of booze.

I can't do this. I have to throttle back.

So I'm swilling 3 ounces of Knob Creek tonight in an effort to taper. Oddly enough, it's good. Better than a cocktail. I'm remembering now why I eased up on beer in my mid-20's and started drinking hard liquor on a night out. It's because I'd drink 2-4 shots total, at the rate of 1 shot per hour - at the most - and go home sober and not bloated out. Straight liquor forces a bit of moderation. The only people who drink whiskey like cowboys in movies are actors in movies who are actually throwing down shots of iced tea. You didn't think that was real, did you?

So I got onto the bourbon sidecar last night and had to pull the abort button. I just didn't have it in me to go any further. This drinking schedule was frickin' punishing, like trying to do three interval sessions in a short training week.

The whiskey this week has been okay. It's those damn sugary liquors that were fucking me up. This Knob is going down just fine...

So I pussed out. I'll admit it that I had to ease up this week. I'm just not that good of a determined drunk, and that shit was destroying me. So we'll continue with the cocktails over the weekend, and I'll go to the 'cross promoter's meeting stinking of bourbon and making people there wonder about my sobriety and sanity. For now... chilling.

And as for this comment to Tuesday night's post:

Now that you're 40% done with your competition, Jim, I really need to question your whole methodology. Comparing a bourbon drink to a whisky(ey) drink each evening is all wrong. You need to expand the brackets so there is a bourbon/rye champ (something with Woodford would be my personal go-to) and a whisky(ey) champ. Then, after a bye-day or two; hold your Slapfight Bowl with a clear head and somewhat less swollen liver to properly judge the champ

What? Are you trying to kill me? Expand the brackets? Jeebus... who do you think I am? A Kennedy?

In the words of R.L. Burnside, I ain't gon' drink no more.

Of course, I ain't gon' drink no less, neither.

So how 'bout some muzak?




Yeah. That's better. That one was for me. This one's appropriate too though.



This one is for all the people on the MABRA listserve going on endlessly about the three foot passing rule.



And this little bit of Eye-Talian (okay, it's Brazilian but the lie seems appropriate in light of the Ricco debacle) country & western is for the folks who know there's no dopin' in MABRA, can't happen here, wouldn't happen here, doesn't matter, we'd only be a laughin' stock to look.



Speaking of dope... This isn't exactly my sentiment, but I got a special request from a guy who calls himself "Cav," for his "bitch Ricco," whatever that means. (NSFW).



Speaking of negativity... the lack of riding, the continuing cold of winter, and the fact that I'm suffering a perpetual whiskey hangover right now has me down. You know what helps with that? Nice music. You've heard of Vivaldi's Four Season's, right? Here's the "Winter" movement. It's kinda pretty. Prettier than the weather right now, that's for sure.



Time to wrap this up. Here ya go.



Have a good weekend. Try to find a ride, kids.

Day 2: 5 Day Whisky Cocktail Slapfight: Rob Roy Steals My Cattle, & Inner Censor

The shit I don't do for you people.

I realized two things this morning.

First of all, using the 3 ounce cap on my nice stainless shaker as a one part for mixing these cocktails - as in "two parts whiskey one part vermouth" - is pretty heavy duty. I realized this when woke up and thought there was a cat stuck in my mouth, but it was only my mouth.

Second, this is a heavyweight fight of ten rounds. Each night, I'm pairing up the previous night's winner with a new cocktail.

Two rounds a night, five days.

Classic heavyweight bout, right there.

Which makes perfect sense because each morning I'm going to wake up feeling like I got beaten and picked up a concussion the night before.

Tonight's matchup is last night's champ, the Manhattan, squaring off against his Scottish cousin, the Rob Roy. A Rob Roy is nothing but a Manhattan made with Scotch. Of course that's like saying Ma Deuce is nothing but a machine gun made with John M. Browning's ideas, or champagne is nothing but French wine made with bubbles, or Catholic doctrine made in Rome.

Scotch is the sine qua non of high quality boozing. Sure, you can get some low quality scotch - but even that is usually made from high quality single malts that some Scottish bastard decided could be whipped into a punishing blend to be the scourge of low rent morons who deserve to be punished.

There aren't many Scotch whiskeys, er, whiskys, that I'll turn down on quality grounds. There are plenty I'll turn down on taste grounds though. When Scotch doesn't get along with your palate, it declares war along the lines of Russians-reaching-Berlin dyspepsia. And I... how should I put this delicately... am not a big fan of the blended scotches. The medicinal peaty taste that is so appealing in Ardbeg or Laphroaig or one of the small batch Islay malts, tastes like Listerine in a blend. The cinammon sharpness of the highland malts tends to taste like cigarette butts - to me anyhow - in most blends. And the mildness of the lowland malts tastes like a sandbagger whisky sour left over from a wedding reception when you get it in a blend.

Still, some blends are decent enough, the higher end Johnny Walkers, and most notably, Chivas.

I collect Chivas, actually. People will wonder what to get me because I am the Man Who Has Everything In His Mind, and somebody will mention that I drink Scotch, which is true just as I eat food is also a true statement about me. If they are a scotch drinker, they'll throw me a bottle of Laphroaig 10 year, which isn't the greatest scotch in the world but it's a very nice one, a scotch drinker's scotch in the way you won't find many bourbon drinkers turning down a shot of Maker's. Solid. So I have 4 bottles of that sitting around, give or take. If they aren't scotch drinkers, they'll score me a bottle of Chivas. I have three of them sitting around.

So naturally, I have to figure out how to burn some of the Scottish National Cirrhosis Reserve Stocks, and the Rob Roy is the answer for that, at least tonight. I wouldn't blend a good single malt - unless it was to go into an exceptionally weird & cool mix, like a homemade Drambuie or something - so tonight's assault will be on the blended stuff.

The Rob Roy is a simple drink. It's two parts Scotch to one part Sweet Vermouth, with a dash of Angostura Bitters, shaken over ice, and maybe a cherry and a dash of cherry juice thrown in. It's a nice drink. It's also the first one on deck tonight and I can report, it's going down pretty damn smooth.

What's the taste like? Sophisticated. Scotch has a much more complicated palate than rye or bourbon. Chivas in a mixer is peppery, a tiny bit medicinal, and astringent. The peppery notes really set off the cherry and Vermouth; their sweetness is really set off by the scotch, but without being overwhelmed by it and turned into a sweet drink.

So how will the Manhattan hold up against this onslaught?

I'll tell you in about 10 minutes.

Okay then.

I hate to say this but it's the Manhattan in a rout.

Compared to the Rob Roy, the Manhattan is a more accessible drink. Made with rye, it's dry, and a bit lighter. I will confess to chuckling while drinking the Rob Roy, and inadvertently taking some the wrong way down my throat, a move accompanied by involuntary shivers. I don't think the Manhattan would do that to me.

It's not that the Rob Roy is a bad drink; it's not. But it strikes me as the hard core scotch drinker's cocktail. I drink scotch, but I'm not hard core. In my old age I've turned into more of a bourbon drinker. I like a whisky that is simple, tasty and quite strong, but not terribly challenging to get down. I like scotch but, like canned tuna, there are some days where I just don't have a taste for it, and on those days it's like forcing down cat food.

I will make the comparison here between an okay, strong red wine, and a great white.

Is the white better than the red? Or do you discount the white just because it doesn't kick your ass whenever you try to drink it?

For a while there, I used to discount the white because it wasn't as full bodied as the red. If I was doing this shootout back then, I'd like the Rob Roy more because it's got more kick, just like an okay Bordeaux.

But the more delicate rye Manhattan, like that really good white Languedoc, brings more to the table. It wins tonight's bout.

Wow, I'm having trouble closing this out. Gotta get a shaker with a top cap size smaller than 3 ounces. This shootout is going to kill me.

5 Day Whisky Cocktail Slapfight

Well.. there's not much riding going on. I've been re-fitting a bathroom up to Mrs. Rouleur's specs. By the time I'm done the damn thing is going to be too nice to take a crap in. You probably think I'm joking but I'm not, I'll post pictures. Working on trim and whatnot right now, the slow part of the job that takes a week. Spectacular tile job, new plumbing, squaring up crooked old walls as best as possible with sheetrock & mud work, that's all done. And the weather mostly blows and I've been mostly off the bike with still-purple knees. I'll be back on the bike this week. But meanwhile...

I was wondering, what's the ultimate, mainstream whisky cocktail? There's a lot of good ones out there. So I'm going to have a Steel Cage, Lockdown, World Championship Rumble/Deathmatch for the next 5 days. I'm going to pit two whisky cocktails against each other every day and see who comes out on top, other than my internist who will be treating my cirrhosis in a couple years.

Tonight... It's the Manhattan versus the Algonquin.

Those of you who know me know that I love the Manhattan. Somebody told me a while back that it was a granny drink... this is true if your granny is Charles Bukowski's girlfriend.

The Manhattan is a simple drink - two parts whiskey, one part sweet vermouth, a dash of Angostura Bitters, shaken over ice, served with a couple maraschino cherries and a dash of cherry juice. I am partial to it with Maker's Mark if I want it real sweet, or with Rye for a slightly dry-er drink.

I made it with Jim Beam Rye tonight, which is roughly 81% better than standard Jim Beam.

To keep things equal, I made the Algonquin with the same rye, and with the same brand of vermouth.

The Algonquin comprises two parts whiskey (or whisky, your call) to one part dry vermouth, one part pineapple juice, and a cherry can be added for a trace of sweetness.

How'd they do?

Well, if it was a hot day, high humidity, and the Manhattan was made with Makers or some other sweet, heavy bourbon, the Algonquin would have stood a chance. It is a dry drink, not a heavy dry like a martini but light, like champagne, but with a mule's kick. It goes down easy; you could serve this as a mini-shot at a party. Like the denizens of the Round Table at it's namesake, the Algonquin Hotel, it would be a perfect drink for silver-tongued bon vivants, as quick to throw down a cocktail as they are to toss off a bon mot.

Alas, it didn't stand a chance against the heavyweight champ, the Manhattan. Leaned down with a good rye, the Manhattan was sweet but a little astringent, and it packed a hell of a wallop (perhaps because it was the second drink, and I was using a 3 ounce measure from atop my stainless cocktail shaker).

So that didn't take long... Manhattan by a knockout, though I'd recommend keeping the Algonquin handy for a hot day, or for guests preferring a slightly lighter flavored drink.

On Deck:

Rob Roy
Whisky Sour
Sidecar

Plus two drinks that you, the readers, nominate in the next few days. Gotta have whisky or whiskey in them and not be repulsive to me.

Superbowl Picks

Stillers by 3.



Other predictions:

1) Ben Roethlisberger's rehabilitation pronounced a success, now that he's avoided being accused of rape for nearly 5 straight months. It will be a "marvelous story."

2) Aaron Rodgers will rush for 35+ yards.

3) The commercials won't be as good this year.

4) But you'll still get just as hammered.