Absurd, Futile and Tragic
Those three words are my effort to describe the actions of the latest 'lone gunman'. I'm probably not going to elucidate on that, but rest assured that description comes after careful consideration. Of course, words can only capture so much, and those are just three of them.
Cycling News Tour Ladder, Still OTB
So I still haven't ridden since last week. Stayed up late Sunday night leveling my rogue in WoW and was too blasted to ride yesterday, plus it was hot. Today's excuse was rain, but it had stopped by the time I would have been aboard. So to pull off the 'tre' I will need to ride the next three days. Planning to be in bed by 10 tonight to make sure I get enough rest.
Nice tour ladder preview on cyclingnews: http://www.cyclingnews.com/features.php?id=features/2009/tour_de_france_ladder_jun09. Where did LA get those shades, too cool for school.
Doldrums
Here I am wanting to ride but in that grey area of newness where I feel like ass for days after a couple days of riding.
Rode Mon and Tues, not yesterday or today. Promising myself I'll ride in the rain tomorrow no matter what, on the theory I'll have all weekend to recover. Which. I'm. Going. To. Need.
In other news my promotion became official yesterday. I'm the new Information Services Coordinator, a kind of help desk/IT trainee hybrid position. I'm super stoked about that and IFLML, just wish I could start working from home one day a week cause I really need the help on the rest front what with taking J man to preschool.
Also, on that subject, it is bringing with it all the crap that kids and school bring. Pushy kids, jerky kids who make fun of you and stuff. But whatever, he'll deal. Oh also, today it is J man vs. institutional spaghetti (today's lunch). I bet the spaghetti wins.
Another Day Another Ride
Managed to get on the bike again this morning. Due to better routing and better legs I got here like 20% faster than yesterday (8 minutes). That lessens my morning stress considerably as then I have plenty of time to use the building facilities and arrive at my desk without looking mussed. AND WE ALL KNOW HOW IMPORTANT THAT IS!
Ride home last night was a bit strenuous but not too difficult. I feared it would take me 50 minutes but it took just 45, but I'm hoping it will normally be 40 or less. Today it is going to be in the high 80s so the heat will bring its own difficulty aside from the hilly ride.
I weighed in this morning and I've never been this heavy before....eyah. Well when I ride regularly I usually drop a few pounds a week until I get to some sort of equilibrium. Lets just say it will take 2-3 months before I see that. I just hope to be able to wear a bathing suit in early August without looking like a beached....you know.
J man's first day at preschool went well. Evidently a kid pushed him and a kid pushed and hit him, or both kids pushed and hit, not exactly sure. But he didn't seem very upset by it and just told his teacher. He's new so from my view it is natural that other kids will try to establish dominance over him. He's really tall but very thin but wiry so we'll see how it goes. I'd kind of like to get him to take Judo or something because he's the kind of kid that if trained to use other (bigger) people's weight against them, he would just never get picked on ever. He's really strong and tall, just not big. My prediction is he'll get big when he's older, but we'll see. Probably spending more time on the bullying thing than I need to, sorry. He told his teachers and the kids stopped, so no biggie. He really likes the place and he'll make new friends fast.
So I'm Riding Again
New daycare situation for the J man has me driving to East Falls Church every morning and biking in from there to DC. Took me 40 minutes this morning. My weight is like 215-220 and I have basically zilch condition, but my legs aren't horrible. I predict I'll shave 5 minutes of my commute after 1-2 weeks as my wind gets better, and then it will get incrementally better as I drop weight and make smaller improvements. I'm planning to just do this every day so we'll see how that works out for me. Hopefully I can cause the weather is amazing now. Alternative would be to bike from day care 1 mile to metro, which isn't a terrible thing to do either but I really think I can manage my energy so I can stand 90-100 minutes of biking every single weekday.
Last night I took the Calfee down off the pegs and cleaned it up and got it ready to ride (it had a flat), packed a bag with tools and such like, and planned out a bike and work outfit for today. I won't have time to waste in the morning so every evening is going to have to be fairly disciplined with this sort of thing to minimize morning stress and time consumption.
In an unusual display of asshatery done about 2 years ago I took the racks off the Buick and started to configure them for the VW, then stopped halfway through it, and this weekend I couldn't find the missing pieces. Throwing the bike in the trunk sans wheels is fine for now, but it gets to be a problem when it rains, so hopefully I can find the parts in one of the 27 possible nooks I could have put them in sooner rather than later, or just get new ones if needed.
The commute itself was completely uneventful. I passed 3 upright bike commuter types and got passed by a guy that looked like an NCVC guy riding incognito. I could stand up and pound the pedals over rises, but I'd have to sit down and spin a really small gear at the top of hills as I'd be out of breath. It was nice to motor just a little and feel the burn again, but I tried not to overdo it.
Labels: bike commute, bike racks
Why I Quit Racing
In the context of a discussion about a driver who killed a cyclist I had an email exchange with Scott Thompson, and he asked my why I quit racing, after I had had such an amazing year racing in 2006. Here are my thoughts.
Yeah I guess I achieved what I wanted, I proved I could come back from all my injuries and make it to cat 2. Problem was I didn't really find cat 3 to be all that challenging, I was top five in every race that I had a right to be top five in, I don't really want to do masters and race with cat fours, and if I race pro,1,2 I'm racing people with no life but the bike. It just didn't feel like there was a place for me anymore. And honestly, racing is very repetitive. There are only so many courses and the people and tactics are basically the same. It is dangerous, expensive, time-consuming, and exhausting. I guess I just didn't feel like I was getting much out of it.
The fire to race just went out of me and you can't be lukewarm about racing, you have to be crazy for the bike and for the win or there is just no point. So I just took my upgrade and my cat 2 license is on my fridge. Also factoring heavily into all this is the fact that I have broken my left ankle twice, my left thigh in two places (still has a femur-length plate) my right foot also was broken, and my right tibia (very bad break just below the knee). All the racing and training was putting a lot of strain on my body and my past injuries and I was just tired of being in pain all the time. I'm going to start physical therapy for some of that stuff after my vacation next week.
Craig Clark's accident has underlined the danger part as well, although we all know that you can get hit by a bus just as easily as die in a bike race.
We have another child due in 2-3 months and I'm looking forward to that.
The thing I love best about cycling is the gamesmanship. The physical aspect is secondary to me. I love the tactics. Watching the Tour this year trying to figure out CSC's tactic on the Alpe, that was so awesome. Seeing the two up sprint the next day, amazing fun. I felt like I had figured out just about everything I could about the tactics, and I was just done. Lately I've been playing a lot of Warcraft, I'm learning a lot about gamesmanship there. I might write a book on it someday, game theory, that sort of thing. It's a subject that has always fascinated me.
If you look at how I raced you can see that. For example my win in Bunny Hop taking it all the way from the second to the last corner to the line. That win was equal part daring tactics, cornering skill, and speed.
Remembering Jay Moglia's First Race
So I was checking out Jay Moglia's blog the other day. http://rawtalent.lostriverbarn.com/
I like it.
It got me to thinking about his first race so I wrote up a post about our trip.
It was in Wilkes Barre, PA. We drove up the night before in my 1976 BMW 2002. Black. Roof Racks. Spent the night in some motel. Nasty four corner crit course with a one lane road between turns 2 and 3. Rectangle. Slight rise between turn four and the finish line. Turn two had a rough surface in addition to being narrow and some guy was whining/yelling at me for racing in the turns. I did the 3s while Jay did 4s or citizen or whatever they had then don't remember but I remember Jay spent the whole race about 15 meters off the back. He was on the Behemoth (Cannondale touring bike) with the Girvin flexstem.
We were both working for Pro courier at the time. Their fleet of couriers was four. Me (three days a week), Jay, Andre (he also rolled in a white Chevette with his girl sometimes) and a guy named James, who later started his own courier business, the James Express (which consisted of him only). James rolled on a hybrid and while I'm sure he could get going pretty fast, I think we probably snickered a bit at the name. Us going racing left them shorthanded. So John the dispatcher came downtown and covered for us, doing like 57 runs or something.
Used to see James on the street for years but he finally disappeared for good around 2003. Also kept in touch with John for a longish time, he went into the trucking business. He did some long haul trucking and dispatching for a company down in Springfield, bought a house around Lorton with his 2nd wife. Finally lost touch with him around 2001. Andre was a shady haven't seen him in 15 years.
Good times.
