Post To End All Posts

This post has spent a lot of time being concocted in my head.  How do you say goodbye to the world?  Originally, my goal was to make fun of Mark and Don.  Somewhere along the way, I got lost.  Fortunately, Will gave me a compass.  I've decided that this blog has run its course and found itself in a cul-de-sac on the wrong end of a one-way street.  There are many other people that are more witty than I, more emo than I and some even that are both.  So I leave you in good hands.  Plus, I don't have time to stay on top enough to update.  Also, I'm bored.

In closing, I give you this:

Caffeine + HFCS = teh Sux0rs

note: I had not yet had a chance to read wcuk before posting this . . . what appropriate timing.

The latter half of Monday was one of the most unbearable stretches of work I've yet experienced. It was only partially due to what was going on at work.

As soon as I got home, I put a potato in the oven and went to sleep. I woke up about thirty seconds before the timer went off. I ate, then went back to sleep. Around 8:30pm, I got in bed . . . it was still a bit light out. It's now 3:50am and I've been folding clothes, watching BloombergTV and reading for the past hour or so.

Why? Because caffeine + high-fructose corn syrup = grumpus-wumpus. The effects of Caffeine and other methylated xanthines are[1] well-documented[2]. The jury is still[3] out[4] on the full effects of High-Fructose Corn Syrup. You can pick and choose your studies all you want -- I know how the one-two combo of caffeine and HFCS makes me feel at the end of the day.

One little note: whenever a discussion of HFCS comes up, there is always someone saying that HFCS is just 55 percent fructose and 45 percent glucose . . . nearly identical to the 50/50 split that composes table sugar. This is not entirely true. Table sugar is actually sucrose, which is an entity completely separate from its constituent parts, fructose and glucose, due to dehydration synthesis/glycosidic linkage. Thus, sucrose requires hydrolysis in the body to become 50:50 fructose:glucose (I believe amylase catalyzes the reaction). Chemistry lesson over.

Hate

Interns suck.

Owasco -- teh Suck

What is stupider than mountain biking?

Time-trialing.

Owasco started off with a 12.5ish mile TT. I rode complete and utter Merckx-style (i.e. sans aero of any sort) and still beat at least 20 d-bags with cash to burn (30'03"). Losers. But I sunburned my hands since I wasn't wearing gloves.

We sat around until the criterium. I spent some of that time sleeping on the concrete sidewalk outside the Auburn Wegmans. It was a really, really dumb criterium. I have no idea how I ended up with position going into the final turn (less than 100m from the uphill finish to the line -- yeah, like I said, really, really dumb) and pulled off 2nd after yet another d-bag (true story, ask Mark) from MIT pulled a cheeky move and chopped everyone to the inside.

The road race, despite being the worst ever, was awesome. I picked up some more bonus time (like that was going to help me, 2'30" down) in the first sprint. I came unhitched on the first KOM climb, a 1.2 mile 7% deal. I was in the third group over . . . the seven of us chasing back (ok, so honestly it was me and two Van Dessels chasing back, the rest were teh suxors) for 20 minutes. As soon as we got back on to the leaders, my back tire picked up a sweet sharp stone and went flat. Got a wheel change, chased back with two others (even more useless and lame than the non-Van Dessels in the first chase) with a bit of help from the wheel and follow car for another 20 minutes. Hung on for about 30 more minutes and then went *POP* on a section that looked like it came from a saltbox roof. Oh well. At least I chased back on twice.

P.S. I didn't finish.

P.P.S. Todd needs to go to man school.

P.P.P.S. Mark needs to go to potty training.

Sicko, Part II

It seems that my semi-annual throat virus turned up last week and stuck with me through today. The sore throat has moved south and has become a hackish cough. Based on past experience, I can look forward to the cough for about a week or two.

Looks like I'll be taking it easy in Owasco this weekend and hoping my chest is clear for Altoona.

In general, I avoid riding whenever I'm sick below the neck but I don't think there's actually any sickness left, it's just residual. Off to the hills go I . . .

Sicko

I've been feeling a bit sick for about a week. It's nothing major, mostly just a sore throat and achy joints. I could feel it in the beginning of my ride last Friday and I've decided to take it easy (read: no riding) until I'm fully back to 100%. If that means no riding until Owasco, well, that's fine with me. So long as I'm fresh and ready for Altoona, I'll be happy.

I've found that training while you're sick is, at best, ineffective. You can easily cause more harm than good so it's best not to push it when your body isn't up to it. Would you run your car without any oil in the engine?

Cycling.tv

I just fired up Internet Explorer today for the first time in months so I could watch the reporter decide not to report on Paris Hilton and try (unsuccessfully) to set fire to her script and ultimately shredding it. Since I only ever use IE to watch Cycling.tv, I've got it set as my homepage and was quite dismayed with what I was presented.

They began to implement a new interface this season but I just saw it for the first time today. I used to advocate a lot for buying the Premium subscription since:

1. It is only $40 and I consider that a just fee
   
2. It shows support and demand for televised coverage of cycling events in the USA
   
3. Anthony McCrossen is almost as funny as Phil Liggett. Almost.
   
4. Where else will I get sweet highlights?

However, this new interface sucks ass. It keeps losing my login and I'm not sure why I can't watch the Now Playing through Premium like I used to. All in all, it's crap. Can anyone explain the reasoning behind moving to this new format? Didn't think so.

Aych-Ee-Double-Hockey-Sticks

It is SO hot. And humid. It was like that yesterday, too. I rode tempo to Rahway, we got there way early. I dropped my bottle of Cytomax. I didn't finish. SO hot. And humid.

No riding today because it is hot as hell.

Without a training ride to do, I feel like I have so much time to do things that I otherwise can't do. Like grocery shopping. Or watching a movie. Or putting away my folded laundry and ironing my shirts (too hot for that, though). How much of this have I gotten done in the hour and a half I've been home? Yeah, none.

I've decided that one win in a season doesn't cut it so unless I've specifically decided or been told to work for someone else, I'm going to stop treating non-priority races like I treat Rahway. That is to say, I won't be doing much Jenksster-style attack-all-the-time-just-to-see-the-looks-of-pain-on-everyone-else's-face kind of racing. Yeah, that kind. I think one of these races (4th of July?), I will sit in the WHOLE race and see how much easier that makes the sprint.

Teh Awesomer Wedding

Ok, Blogger, let's have a truce for now so I can write this post.

Last Thursday, I drove to beautiful and historic Hillsborough, NC for the Monson-Younger wedding. It took 7 hours to get there but was absolutely worth it. I got to the hotel with just enough time to shower, clean up and change for that day's event: the bachelor party. We even had our own coozies that were appropriately labeled Monson's Last Day on Earth. A recounting of the evening's events in full follows:

this section edited for content and brevity
. . . had a few beers on the bus . . . had a few more beers at the first bar . . . had a few beers with dinner . . . had a few beers after dinner . . . stumbled upon an in-progress speed-dating event . . . had a few more beers . . . got kicked out of our final destination . . . observed that every inch of the bathroom EXCEPT the toilet was covered in [name withheld to protect the innocent]'s regurgitated dinner . . . passed out . . .
end edited section

We went to lunch Friday at the very tasty Bandidos in downtown historic Hillsborough, nursing hangovers and beers.

Good Mexican and tasty beers

After lunch we got prettied up and went to the gorgeous and historic Younger home for some cocktails and snacks. The house was built in the 1820s and is absolutely magnificent. I wish I had brought my camera. As the wedding party departed for the rehearsal ceremony, a few of us stayed behind to make sure the bottoms of our beers and cocktails were thoroughly dry.

The rehearsal dinner was held at yet another historic location in Hillsborough. Dinner included baked beans, chicken and BBQ (the real kind) and was delicious (as is anything that Koops has a hand in). A blues band was playing most of the evening and was really fantastic, though I must admit that the times they sounded best were when either Monson or Andy was playing the harmonica with them.

Arriving at the rehearsal dinner with three beautiful ladies

After the dinner and many inebriated speeches and toasts, the younger lot of us (not to be confused with the Younger lot of us) headed to the Wooden Nickel, a great little bar in the downtown area. To give the NJ folks a sense of space, think Clydz and then cut that in half. It was small. However, they had both Blue Moon and #9 on tap, so I was happy. All I can say is that good times were had by most.

The following day I made the 2 hour drive to Davidson to have lunch with my best friend from college and to surprise another one of our friends. You might think driving four hours just to spend an hour eating pizza and garlic knots with a couple guys is crazy. You would be wrong, with this crowd, it's worth every mile.

I got back just in time to shower and put on my best for the ceremony. Most weddings are beautiful, however, this one was exquisite. Before Koops even walked in, I could feel some tears welling up at the first few chords of Canon in D. The whole process was short but oh-so-sweet. Unfortunately, there was no flash photography allowed inside the church, so this is all you get of the ceremony:

Andy does a great job watching the door despite being quite intoxicated

I'll spare you most of the details of the reception other than that it continued in the style of the ceremony: exquisite. I got my dances out of the way quickly:

First with the bride . . .

. . . then with the groom

After the reception we all went back over to the Wooden Nickel to cap off the evening, except for the newlyweds, of course, as they had some business to attend to. I had a Drink Your Blue Moon Faster Race, losing the first heat but winning the second. Note that this is not to be confused with a chugging contest. A Drink Your Blue Moon Faster Race is F1 Series to a chugging contest's NASCAR (i.e. it's not a hillbilly activity). Good times, again. The evening was capped off with 2.5 hours of excellent conversation in an attempt to sober up before going to bed to avoid the always-dreadful long-drive-home-with-a-hangover. At 4:30, my head hit the pillow immensely satisfied.

Sunday morning came very quickly and I felt the effects of limited sleep over the previous three days (not so much hungover though . . . thanks Marth). I also had a sinking feeling in my stomach, the same one I had on my drive home from Davidson after graduation. No matter how much we argue, how much we insult, how much we glare, I always know I can count on a few people and most of those few were in attendance that weekend. This picture of Andy I snagged around 9AM on Sunday morning pretty much captures the whole weekend.

Passed out on top of the sheets in full tux, but with enough sense to remove his wallet

The weekend was simultaneously one of the best and worst of my life. Why it was one of the best is easy to see. The problem is, being one of the best made leaving on Sunday awfully difficult. It's a give-and-take, I suppose. Given the chance, though, I'd do it all over again, exactly the same way, in a heartbeat.

Now I just need more friends to get married!

Blogger is Stupid

Blogger blows it out my backside. This is the second time in a row I've lost my wedding post. What a load of crap.

Dang It!

I made an awesome and long wedding post but it got deleted when Opera crashed (or I might have accidentally hit the X . . . whatever).  I'll reformulate it on Wednesday and put it up.

In the meantime, I'm sick of being an emo bitch . . . time to get serious about racing.  Instead of bitching and moaning, I'll be doing sprint workouts 2x per week.  They won't know what hit 'em.

Disappointment

I'm really disappointed in my performance at Manville today. It was 40 laps, about 1km per lap, maybe less. So there wasn't much room or time to move up. It was also about 34°C, which I'm most definitely not used to.

But the real kicker was the deep cough I developed. Everyone who knows me knows that I hate smoking pot. The cough I had during the race was of the I-just-took-too-big-of-a-bong-rip-and-now-my-lungs-are-spasming variety. Bad, bad, bad.

Hopefully, tomorrow, Sunday and Monday will be cooler. Saturday still won't offer much room to move around, but I'll make the best of it. I need Cat3 Cup points.

Racing with rage is not a bad thing.

Politically Un-Correct

I don't like fatties.

Every morning, I eat a bagel and cream cheese with a glass of orange juice for breakfast. I ran out of orange juice and forget to go to the store to get more. So this morning I stopped at Dunkin Donuts on my way to work to get a cinnamon raisin bagel, toasted, with cream cheese and an orange juice.

After I ordered, the very large gentleman behind me placed his order:

A large coffee with two sugars and two creams.
Two everything bagels, toasted, with cream cheese.
A chocolate glazed.
A Boston cream.

You could give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest he was buying for his coworkers, too. Or maybe that was his breakfast and lunch (though, if that's the case . . . ewww!). I considered it unlikely. His order could have nearly fed me for the entire day. The obesity epidemic in the USA (and, increasingly, the rest of the Western world) is alarming and, frankly, pisses me off. Americans' inability to maintain their health results in overcrowding of clinics, overworking of staff, increasing insurance premiums, etc. and that all ends up costing ME money.

As these fat jackasses rumble past us on the road in their ExcessUVs, honking, yelling, making obscene gestures, I bet they little realize their plight. I suppose maybe deep down, they're jealous that we have the motivation to ride. Or maybe not.

Yep, I'm an asshole. So sue me.

P.S. Mark has an interesting post about body weight and body image. He's one insightful guy.

Le Dopage

Doping has been in the (albeit small section of the regular part, but the most important nonetheless to me and most of my readership) news a lot recently. Basso this, Scarponi that, McQuaid breathes fire and Pound should retire. You can bet that reader letters on Cyclingnews.com are going to involve the same back-and-forth ridiculousness that unfolded last summer when Puerto broke. To save you some time from reading the weekly letters page, here is a summary of all the positions that will be taken (why you would want to be saved time when you are reading Cyclingnews.com letters page to kill time to begin with is beyond me):

The Shocked Believer:
How can riders still dope? Don't they know they'll be caught? How dumb of them. Their stupidity will surely kill the sport.

The Cynic:
If it wasn't obvious Basso was running high-octane when he stomped all over the Giro in 2006, you need to get your head out of the sand. They're all dopers. Their code of silence is killing the sport.

The Pessimist:
Bah! I've followed the sport for one hundred and eleventy years (never you mind I couldn't tell a derailleur from a musette bag before that Lance guy came along) and this is the last straw! I've had it with these frauds! I'm done with this sport, it is dead to me! (Unless any of you happen to respond to my comment, which is the only reason I was reading Cyclingnews.com a week later, in which case I'll counter with the fire of a thousand fiery serpent tongues spitting venom from the head of Medusa with some irrelevant argument about buying shoes and your feet being a little big, betch!)

The Optimist:
It's high time we had a cleansing of the peloton! This time, it's for real! Puerto will air out the sport's dirty laundry. Because Festina, the Belgian affair, Manzano, Hamilton, etc. were only minor incidents. Though the bad press will probably lead to sponsors pulling out of the sport . . . it will be dead.

The Guy With THE Solution:
Blah, blah, blah, some ridiculous idea that violates the natural rights of the riders as human beings, blah, blah, blah, some even more ridiculous idea about banning riders "under suspicion" without any credible evidence whatsoever, blah, blah, blah, or else the sport will die.

The Guy With The OTHER Solution:
Ok, so they're all on the dope. So let 'em! Never mind that the sport will turn into a more boring version of WWF wrestling, just let 'em wreck their bodies in the pursuit of financial gain and glory. Hell, while we're at it, let's start juicing kids in elementary school so they won't be disadvantaged! Or else, the sport will die.

Whatever. Who cares. Life goes on. Go outside and ride your damn bike.

Overdue

Blog post long overdue. Good night's sleep long overdue. Win* at Rahway long overdue.

*Car-related protests were lodged by sore loser sissies.

Open Letter to Tooly McToolbag

First things first: go read one of the best blog posts ever.

Now, back to the subject at hand. An open letter to Tooly McToolbag:

A few weeks ago, my beautiful and kind cousin Sara Trey was walking along the peaceful Schuykill River near her dorm on Penn's campus. She was strolling along a multi-use path, taking in the sights and sounds of Spring in Philadelphia. By all accounts, she is kind, courteous and generally happy-go-lucky. She wasn't walking in the middle of the path, but very courteously to the right side.

At some point in her stroll, some douchebag with an attitude flies past her in full kit (and probably on a full carbon Madone SSSSSSL 6.66 with the Zipp 909 combo) and tears a gash in her arm the size of the Mariana Trench. As an aspiring doctor, she maintained her composure as she gushed blood but did not manage to flag down the offending loser.

So, Mr. McToolbag, what have you to say for yourself? You've given us cyclists, and specifically roadies, a bad name. As if we roadies needed more hate poured upon us. In all of your effort to fit in and be part of the now-hip cycling culture, you've called attention to yourself as an outsider, a pariah, an untouchable, a vagrant. Unfortunately, what you see of the TdF on TV does not actually happen in real life. We don't cruise around in Postal team kit, we don't toss our helmets aside on the final ascent, we don't eject our bottles once they're empty and we sure-as-shit don't hammer on multi-use paths (or roll on Shabbos)!

Get a clue, Tooly, and slow down around the pedestrians.

Injury Update

I think my knee is at about 80% this morning.

I think Mark's trainer is at about 0%. I tried to spin lightly on it yesterday (my own trainer is at 0%) and it started to make some horrendous noises. But the knee felt OK.

Karma

My left knee somehow blew up today. It hurts.

The Epic Easter Ride

The plan for today was to do 4 hours of endurance/tempo with Todd. As soon as we rolled out from the shop, the wind smacked us and I had a feeling we might not make it the full 4 hours. Apparently the Northeast US and Belgium decided to trade weather today. For De Ronde, blue skies and sunny with temperatures at or above 20°C. For New Jersey, partly cloudy, gusty wind and flurries with temperatures at or below 5°C.

Not thirty minutes into the ride, Harold had a flat. It was a sign of things to come. I had just started to warm up a bit from riding tempo next to Todd and, while the change was made quickly, it was enough time to cool right down. Not a mile down the road, we passed Omar and Ralf on the side of the road, also changing a flat. We decided not to stop since we all wanted to stay warm.

Andy yelled at me for pulling in the gutter and not giving anyone the benefit of the draft. Sorry guys, my bad. We were able to make it the rest of the way to the First Bridge rest stop uneventfully. Andy and Harold smartly turned home after the beating they had taken from the cold and wind.

We rolled out of the First Bridge parking lot and made about five minutes worth of progress when Todd notified us he had to stop to fix some kind of saddle/shoe/cleat/pedal combo problem. We waited another five or so minutes, getting cold. It was at this time that the already-shortened ride was in danger of becoming shorter. We pressed on to Coppermine at my behest. Coppermine was probably the highlight of the ride. Being uphill and protected by trees, it gave us a brief respite from the wind. At the top, Mark and Pluto decided to descend and head straight home along Canal while Todd, Dave K. and myself decided to take Dog Jump home. Once across the canal and into Rocky Hill, the flurries began and intensified.

As we came through the housing developments, we were about to make the left turn onto the road that follows the canal back to First Bridge when an incident occurred that pushed the ride from epic into legendary territory. Amidst the fairly heavy flurries, Dave K. lost focus for a moment when he looked behind to check for a car and realized he had overlapped his front wheel with Todd's rear wheel. I watched from a distance as Dave locked up his rear wheel, nearly righted himself, unclipped his left foot and tripodded and ultimately went down in one of the most graceful crashes I've seen. The only damage sustained was a crooked stem, which was easily remedied. It was at this point I realized that we probably should not have been riding at all today. Fate had not been on our side.

On the way home, we were still riding tempo and finally got back to the park, about three hours after leaving the shop but with only about two hours of actual riding time. It was then that I decided the ride warranted documentation.

Despite the mishaps, the ride was a solid two hour block of training and well worth it. Let's hope the weather improves for next weekend so I can put all the time and distance in I've been wanting to do.

The Life of a Hardman

Yesterday I was looking forward to getting out of work and getting on the bike. I had to skip riding on Tuesday because of a mini-disaster that happened at work requiring I be there from 7am to 9pm (what am I, a grad student now?).

The weather yesterday can best be described as "Belgian" with drizzly rain, strong wind and temperatures hovering around 5°C. Both Mark and Craig nancy-ed out on me . . . some 'crossers they are! So I went out for a First Bridge ride at 5:30 with the clip-on aerobars to get used to them for the TT this weekend.

How miserable! I wore my Winter shoes with wool socks but didn't wear shoe covers, neoprene toe covers or even little plastic baggies for liners. Big mistake! By the time I got to First Bridge, my feet felt (actually, there wasn't really feeling but you get the point) like bricks of ice.

I did try to warm up for the first twenty to thirty minutes but I think it was useless. I did a 15min effort once I got past the traffic circle in Bound Brook. Since I couldn't really feel my knees, I didn't realize that they were most likely protesting my workout. It was probably not a good idea to do a hard interval like that in the cold weather.

Anyways, after the ride, I made dinner while I showered (a nifty trick!), ate and went back into work in the span of about one hour. I was hoping for some chocolate fondue but it looks like that would have to wait until some other time.

I promise a more coherent and worthy post in the next couple days. I need to start writing down the ideas that come to me at work so I don't end up with crap for content like this post.