Wednesday, April 01, 2009


I have a feeling this is going to be one of those stream of semi-consciousness nights


A 10 1/2 hour workday coupled with 2 1/2 hours of training'll do that to ya. For some reason I'm not that whupped. Must be all the chocolate milk...or the Larry David sandwich I had for lunch. Pastrami with Swiss, coleslaw, and Russian dressing on Rye. So much for the whole yogurt, apple, banana plan today. Without that sandwich in the tank I don't think I would have gone for the second half of my double-session on the Arlington Water Tower tonight.

Doing reps up the water tower at night is actually pretty cool. You get a killer view of the Boston Skyline as you crest it each time and the traffic is really light. just watch the potholes on the 40MPH descent. I had a thought while I was out there. Yes I'm riding a road bike, but it's a bike and riding a bike is always better than not riding a bike...even if it's a road bike. Riding a road bike up and down hills is really the most compelling thing about road riding to me anyway. Bright side. The soundtrack was good too. Thievery Corporation is excellent to listen to while riding at night. It pays to have hip young friends to tell you about such good musical things.

Ah, another good thing. I cleaned my bike. It was in a sad, sad state. Sandy like a beach and greasy like a bag of onion rings. I threw on some new (to me) parts too. I work at a shop where things like perfectly good 9 Speed (yes, 9 Speed, and eight too many still) Dura Ace cassetttes and chainrings and partially used 10 speed DA chains are discarded. Looking down at the clean space between the cassette cogs and the space between the arms of the crank spider is a happy thing for me. Feeling a less clapped out chain engage less clapped out cogs ain't a bad feeling either.

While I was riding up the hill along route 2, staring at me shiny drivetrain I recalled something Levi Leipheimer said about Alberto Contador's climbing. I won't put it in quotes because it's half-remembered from a T.V. interview but he said something about how Contador is un-effected by gravity, how he pedals uphill with no dead-spot in his stroke. I thought about that while I pedaled but I still felt the gravity and the dead-spot. I'll keep trying.

OK, one more thing, then I go. I was over catching up on The Dickiness this morning, he had a link to Fat Cyclist's "Live blog" building of his Superfly. I was enthralled as it related to Superflies. What I found was that the mechanic he had building up his bike was none other than Troy Michaud. One of the two guys who I would say truly inspired me to dedicate my racing life to single speeding. In fact I wrote about him and some other awesome single-speedin' dudes a while back. Just thought I would mention it here instead of commenting over on Fatty's blog. Who the hell reads all 8 billion comments on his posts anyway? I am so glad I have such an immensely unpopular blog so I don't have to worry about such things.

I am a man of constant sorrow, I've seen trouble all my day...
like having to ride road bikes and not getting as many comments on my blog as Fat Cyclist.

10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just doing my part to bog you down with comments.

Great song (Man of Constant Sorrow).


#4

solobreak said...

Glad to see that you did not get a goose egg today. Speaking of eggs, I made an omelette with spinach this morning, in your honor. Actually in a frying pan. I did not have a tortilla though. Glad to hear you're not eating sandwiches from DD. Eccch. When you live on Gu and PB&J, cravings for things like pastrami are bound to happen. We have pastrami in the caf at work sometimes, but even though it looks good, I never get it, because without a good dark beer then it's a waste of an indulgence. Sorry to hear that you were confined to your road bike. Not really though. Dover TT starts up soon. And I've not fixed my Fat Chance, but I have thought about it. I even bought a part, a USE seatpost adapter so that I can run my Thudbuster ST and save my back. Roto-Reuter says I need some wide rise bars and I agree. That's next. Burp.

jasonwg said...

After seeing you eat that egg/spinach/feta burrito last week (and then reading about it),I actually bought a bag of spinach. We've now had spinach on egg sandwiches, spinach salad with shrimp, and spinach in turkey meatloaf (which was awesome). Thank you Big Bikes.

gewilli said...

rumor has it that he does actually read all his comments over there...

Big Bikes said...

I do too...
see!

Most of the time anyway.

-t

Wheels said...

A question just to support the need for comments: Would you recommend hitting up the Lynn Woods Res after the Marblehead race? Would the Surly 1x1 be happy riding there?

Big Bikes said...

Wheels.

From what I hear the place has turned into a Free Ride terrain park. I haven't been there myself in quite a few years. I've been meaning to get up there on the Remedy though.

I would check out Harold Parker, some of the stuff around Gordon College, or Dogtown. Maybe better for an XC bike.

Oh, and Solo, you'll be happy to know I upgraded to Starbucks breakfast sandwiches, They're doing combos now! They call them pairings. I feel really tough ordering my Tall Soy Latte and Artisan bread ham and egg sandwich.

Jason, I still hate you.

-t

zencycle said...

"A 10 1/2 hour workday coupled with 2 1/2 hours of training'll do that to ya"

Welcome to real world. Most of us '9 to 5ers' spend entire months in that rut, except it isn't really '9 to 5'. It's more like getting up at 6, helping get the kids off to school, sitting in the car for the better part of an hour, Sitting at work for at least 8 1/2 hours, sitting in the car for another hour on the way home, then dealing with the constant joy of home repairs, yard work, and juvenile/teenage drama in dealing with your children every day. Somehow, we manage to fit in another 10+ hours of training per week. I'm lucky though, I can commute by bike, and my wife is just as happy that I'm gone half the weekend. Many of us aren't that lucky.

Some joker wrote an article in velonews about 15 years ago that put it rather succinctly: Everyone should start out as a cat 1. You drop one category for each one of the following; mortgage, spouse, child, full time job. Go up one category if you can commute by bike or take time during the working day to train. Caveats are College students and non-management bike shop employees should all be cat 1s.

By that formula, Solo should be a cat 2, and I'm a 4.

Thievery Corporation is the nuts. Also try Snake River Conspiracy and Slowpho.

Big Bikes said...

Zen-

Thanks for the welcome to the real world, but I'm afraid I've been here all along. I began working before it was legal for me to do so, I worked through my two years of college, I spent two seasons of racing working six days a week and racing on the seventh for months. The sixth day of work was watching my sister's two kids from dawn 'til dusk. People would make the mistake of calling that my "rest day". Far from it, as, it seems, you know too well from the sounds of it.

I was just having a grumble session the other day with Jon Bruno, captain of the IF Elite team about kids who give up on racing once they get out of school because they "don't have enough time to train".

I'm babbling on here, my point...
if you love racing, you make it work, somehow, even if you can't be 100% or even close to where you want to be you go out and do it regardless.

-t

zencycle said...

Big,
I just realized how condescending my comment sounded. My bad.