T-Keo'd

Jules and I got out for a rare ride together. We did 2 hours with me still stuck in my small chainring which was actually good cuz I wanted to spin. My legs were a little tweaked from yesterday. Awesome weather out there today.

Met up with Dean at the wildcat gate coming back in and just before the descent of the wall Dean stood up and snapped off one of his Look Keo pedals...he hit the ground--Hard. He landed on his back and had a huge hematoma on his knee and lots of scrapes...he's gonna be sore tomorrow but luckily he didn't break anything. We were looking around for his pedal and finally we found it...still attached to his cleat. I'm having a hard time figuring out how a normal pedal just snaps off at the spindle.

So dean had to ride back with only a left pedal and me pushing him. At hilton field I called Phillip...no answer so I called right back which is the universal code for a 23 y.o. "I know you're on the couch and totally hung over but pick up the phone anyway" So he met us at the gate...looking like he had just hit the pavement too.

spinnin'

Nice 3.5 hr ride today...I found a solution to my mashing tendencies--just snap the front derailler cable, be stuck in the small ring and there you have it: 120rpm trying to stay on Karl's wheel.

I had a nice McEwen moment today...coming up for the eastover sign sprint I'm sitting 6th, Lang's drilling it with Mark on his wheel then Chris. I sneak up and give a little tug to Chris' jersey opening the gap, I slipped in then I'm sitting pretty (my iPod drowned out the screams of protest). Karl must have saw this cuz he boxed me in and took the sprint.

Also...Directv just added 30 new HD channels including Versus and they're gonna show the tour in HD next year. Cool!

wristSTRONG

Phillip apparently wasn't so lucky in the crash tuesday...fractured wrist:

must...not...press...bid...now.

I gotta stop looking around ebay (my high bid was $1400 but the winning bid of $1525 was still a damn good deal, I showed some rare restraint)

Saturday's gonna kick ass -------------->

exercise

Did 2.5 hours in the fort today...tried to keep the wattage at 200w which is around 70% of my FTP. This tempo is easy enough to do everyday and hard enough to burn a lot of Kj. I'm starting to think about my winter plan. I'm gonna find a workout that can be done in a little over an hour but includes both threshold and Vo2--and do this at least weekly.

On the PM front I've got crusty checking out the new Quarq powermeter at interbike...it looks pretty cool esp when you can use a Garmin Edge 705 as the computer. Hopefully this unit will be as accurate and reliable as the SRM.

TNWC...crashfest edition

the racing: I did what I planned to do which was ride hard and was in a few breaks--one with Charles for a couple of laps...that hurt, he's a strong dude. It was a big crowd tonight and everyone was riding hard. Most attacks got reeled in pretty quickly. Karl and a couple of others had a decent gap with about 3 to go so ladd pegged it for a while then he sat up and I drilled it across to them but we never could get that far away and was caught...then with 1k to go Ladd again tried to give me a launch board but having 30 guys on my wheel didn't bode too well so i just led it out from just after turn 3 to 400m to try and keep it fast and safe. Somebody won. One area of my fitness that's going bye-bye very fast are my V02 capabilities...long hard pulls at 320 to 350w just killed me tonight.

the crashing: with 2 to go (and we were flying...) apparently someone slid out on turn 4 which dominoed about 5 guys into the median. This was the 2nd trip into the grass this year for Nutty without his bike...at 35mph. Robin and a couple others went down but the best display of bike handling and bad luck went to Kevin--he was able to bunny hop the 1st curb but somehow became de-biked and flew across superman style to the pavement on the other side. Lots of road rash, grass stains and scrapes but everyone was ok.

maintain

I've been in cruise mode lately...just riding to keep the weight in check. Tomorrow I plan to try to be more "active" in the crit. I wanna be fried at the end so we'll see how that works out.

Today I was riding in the fort sort of daydreaming, listening to my iPod and I almost nailed a huge ass turkey...

homeland security

I love this photo

TNWC

Play by Play: Karl and Toby are away on the last lap....Toby puts in a hard pull of 27mph down the back stretch, Karl comes around him at 27.8mph on turn 4, toby counters at 27.9mph and drills it for 400m then karl powers away at 28.2mph and takes the win in a hotly contested seated-hands-on-hoods sprint which reminded everyone present of Chipollini/Petacchi.

I was in the chase group (but not really working) with Jay, Langston, Robin, a very fresh Ladd and a couple others. We were all a bit miffed when when someone called 2 laps to go with about 45min left (didn't we say 50+2 at the start?).

Anyway...With the break dangling just ahead of us I knew that if I worked hard to bring them back Jay would just win easily so on the last lap I shirked a couple of pulls and left it up to Jay to pull the 2 non sprinters back (which I though he could do) so i sat on him and he took off as predicted but he died with about 400m to go then I jumped on Lang's wheel and got a good draft and started to come around, but Karl had just crossed the line...good ride by the two skinny guys, they were away for a very LONG time.

Then there's This.

crusty speaks

This is what crusty sounds like in real life....but somehow they edited out the parts where he says "go f*ck yourself.....get f*cked.....you suck.....shut up.....f*ck you.....f*cker"

Corbett retires from Health Net

After keeping this news under wraps for the last couple of months, it's official: Crusty's hanging it up...Seeing as this means he'll be in town a lot more I've suggested some alternative careers: Long haul trucker, submarine navigator, Oil Tanker captain, astronaut...anything to keep him out of town and give us all a break.

caesars head

Great day in the mtns....65 miles and temps in the 70's. We went up Caesars head then over to 178. Lots of good climbing and 2300kJ burned. At the stop sign at hwy 8 and 276, before the first climb Karl says "start the time here..." needless to say I watched him ride away very quickly as I settled into a nice threshold tempo. He did 31min...me, longer than that.

Karl also informed me that he checked his odometer for this year and it's at around 1500miles. I'm considering homicide or just something that will have some permanent, painful, lasting effects. A guy who can climb/race with Cat 1's and 2's and pretty much ride away from any 3 without really training. HE MUST DIE. Sorry Chris, it's just gotta be that way...

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us cycling

Navigators and Kodak are gone for next year...Slipstream, Rock Racing and BMC stepping up in a big way. Plus another big "local" news item not public quite yet...Should make for an interesting year if everything pans out like I'm hearing.

head for the hills

Julie's back....thank god. Time to head to the mtns for a "fun" ride on sat. Since the "season" for me is officially over I'm just trying to keep the pounds off and just take it easy.

ballet

Julie's in London so I'm playing single parent this week (which is similar to double parent, but with lots more drinking). I had some childcare set up to be able to do the crit but E's ballet class ran late and then I just stayed home and did our bath/book/bed/beer routine. Gonna try to get out for 2+ hours tomorrow but we'll see. Julie's back on thursday afternoon so I should be able to make it for the group ride.

Oh yeah...seeing "I'm drunk when I'm not riding or in class" 23yo Phillip driving Ella around to school and gymnastics is pretty humorous. I hope child protective services doesn't read this blog...

Exercise

The Sat ride today was huge...20 people??? what's up with that...It was also freakin hard. I always could tell when Karl hit the front cuz the speed would go from 26 to 29 (33mph on the newly paved section)...and stay there. I like the rides where it's not just double paceline all day...today when you hit the front you could drill it for how ever long you wanted. I did a hardish 2 hour ride yesterday so I wasn't feeling super today but overall I'm pretty fit for this time of year.

tnwc

After racing this weekend and a hard 2 hours yesterday I wasn't that motivated for the tuesday crit...luckily noone else was either. It was one of the slower and mellower crits with everyone just cruising along. I was just looking for some exercise and would take full lap pulls for fun. There were a few attacks but most died of apathy and the "chase" was usually mellow--steady enough to keep the break at bay but pretty easy.

Late in the race Karl rolled away with Charles and Toby. Tom S tried to organize a chase but he was too worried about me and Derek who were just sittin in and chatting (I wasn't going to chase Karl down). With just over a lap to go Tom gave up and I took advantage of the lull and launched a 5 second half hearted "attack" then sat up and quit. Derek used this as a spring board to get across to the break but it was too late and Charles took the win.

USPro

The US Pro RR was today in Greenville. Levi won it on an amazing break solo for 30 miles. I got to ride in the HealthNet team car with Crusty, Mike and Nick the mechanic (who worked for CSC last year in europe). It was a good time and I shot a lot of video that I'll put up soon (Jeff-->heavily edited, of course!).

You'd think that time in a team car for one of the top US squads would be dominated by lots of talk of tactics and race related stuff. Not really...I'll break it down: 75% of the time we were either scoping out chicks on the side of the road or talking about chicks, 24% of the time we were giving Jeff shit about how he was driving, 1% of the time we had to deal with the riders (a tire change, the radio and handing out water bottles). Ahhhh the life of a Pro Cycling director.

Bling

Today Brian, Karl and I went to do the 35+ Masters State RR in Greenville. The course was 60miles (4 laps of 15 miles) and was constantly rolling with no major climbs so it was fast. 2 Dudes rolled away at the start then 3 joined them. The break hovered around 1 minute till the last lap when it went up to 1:40. There wasn't really an organized chase, just lots of guys looking at each other for the first 3 laps.

On the last lap Brian radio'd that he was feeling good so Team Outspokin hit the front with Karl and I driving the chase to bring back the break (Karl doing the majority of the work as usual). Within 10 miles the break was down to 30 sec and was all together soon after that. I got in a spot of bother at one point when I put in a massive pull up a small climb only to have someone attack just as I pulled off...it hurt pretty bad getting back in the group and I recovered pretty well but that effort was a major "match" (actually more like a flame thrower).

The finish came down to a bunch sprint--I was pretty fried and got tweaked by the last little climb a mile or so from the finish but Brian was positioned well and had a good sprint getting 6th and was the 1st S.C. rider so he gets the Gold and the state champ jersey. Pretty cool.

Derek from Cycle Center also is the new state champ by being the 1st S.C. rider in the 45+ Masters (he got 2nd and was beat in the sprint by a guy with toe straps! Just him getting beat in a sprint is pretty strange...but that's downright bizarre).

Lots of Columbia riders racing today...Phillip, Ladd, Nick, Toby, Damon, Jamie, Langston, B.L. Ken, Tom S. & Team Sippy Cup.