intervals, chainrings, and mexican pacelines

an older draft that i never finished or posted. looking forward to harvest being over to get back to this kind of schedule. it's been a week full of amazing rides. i had two days of awesome interval training monday and wednesday. monday was a two mile sprint course with 2 miles back recovery and i felt great. I ended up with the best time of the night though most of my competition wasnt there that night. 2:47 was the time to beat. and that was my 6th run at it. we'll see if i can gain anything on that next week. the next set of intervals was on wednesday and it was hill repeats a 12% gradient hill that is .7 miles long with about 1.5 miles recovery in a loop back to the bottom. my best time there was 3:06 but i was pretty shot from mondays intervals. one of the runs at it we did it in our hardest gear and that was a pretty fun SLOW run at it. but i forgot to set my timer but i think we added about a minute. i was with a teammate coming down the hill after our last climb when we heard two motorcycles coming up behind us. now this hill you can reach 40mph very quickly so he gave me a nod to say lets see how long we can hold them off. obviously at 40 mph they caught us quick but they knew we were racing them and gave us a holler as they went past. I'm pretty sure we gave them a good run for their money ;) once we got back to the cars we told everyone who was back already about how we just smoked a violent biker gang in a race.

in both interval sets i was CONSTANTLY looking for a harder gear. I have to get a smaller cog or a bigger chainring because im just maxing out too early. a teammate gave me a pretty decent program that lets you see the effects of different setups so i plan to mess with that a bit this weekend.

Thursday night is my epic night ride night
but this thursday i was supposed to be sitting up and hanging with the slower group trying to rest up for sundays time trial. yah we'll see how that went its kind of a somewhat all level ride BUT there is a very fast group that breaks off the front and destroys/ self destructs on two little climbs then drops into a wicked paceline for a 10 mile segment of some (reverse false flats) slight downhill. the ride started off quick and i get dropped to some bike prep timing issues had to do about a mile sprint out of the gates to catch them from the get go. then i was sitting at the back of the pack for about two minutes when i saw some guys start to make a move off the front. so i had to sprint to the front past about twenty riders to try to get the guys back wheel. well one violent crank was too much for my already dilapidated cleats resulting in my foot popping out my cranks spinning and my chain get wrapped in a mess that took me WAY too long to free and included two dismounts!! so again i was chasing this time for about 5 miles as the pace had increased. did i mention i was supposed to be sandbagging this ride. so i catch up and on the first hill force myself not to attack. i just sit up and let the climbers do their thing constantly thinking about sundays race and forcing myself to relax knowing there was a re-grouping point on the back end of the hill............... *i just found this in my drafts and realized i started typing it months ago but never posted it oops. trust me the story ended amazingly.

I'm not racing i just dont want to have to smell your stinky lycra

An amazing week of cycling, but, first I must address the "this isn't a race"guy. Now I'm not talking about a specific person (yes I am) but talking about all of this "type" of person. Look when I show up on a group ride and i know it's a slow group i'll sit up and cruise with them in fact every now and then i love to latch onto one of those rides just to spin and chat. BUT, if theres four or five people that start forming off the front im getn on that wheel. Here's what some people dont realize- if a group is pace lining and starts dropping guys and keeps shredding till there's one man standing in the front, that's not racing that's pushing each other. And if we are regrouping every 5 miles to wait for you then it's DEFINATLY not a race. So MR. "this is not a race guy" please concern yourself with spinning your wheels in a forward direction and let me spin mine. And dont worry i'll patiently wait for you at the next re-group spot.

Interesting Tour of Utah

This is the first year I have followed the tour of utah (and i believe the first year it has been televised). I watched most of the prologue this morning as i was getting ready for work and I'm very interested in how they had it set up. a 5min all out effort! it's cool to do something different like that but will a move like that attract more teams in the future? I'm always excited for U.S. races to grow and i haven't quite settled on who i want to be the victor in this one. I'd love to see tejay van garderen take it especially because of the depressing news that htc highroad will no longer be a team after this year. we've got brent and george who are fresh off the tour de france helping the kangaroo win the maillot jaune so i wouldnt be surprised if that gave them a boost of confidence to go for it. Probably a favorite to win is levi but he always seems to find himself in trouble. Then we've got tommy danielson who i really don't know much about except that everyone seems to think he's something amazing, ill be interested to keep an eye on him. Pretty exciting that everyone on that list are STRONG americans!

On the home front I'm hoping to get a couple rides in tonight. A tt with a 2000ft of climbing at the middle and a moderatly paced ride with my wife and local club.

this is not a cycling post but it's a cycling post.

Very rarely is something weighing on my mind so heavily that I'm not thinking about cycling. But, today my heart is breaking for those affected by the disheartening number of military deaths in afghanistan this weekend. Numbers of those killed in action seem to always shock us but do we really grasp the number affected by those fallen. I served in the Marine Corps for 5 years and was fortunate enough to deploy and blessed enough to return from iraq 3 times. I have always said that America should be thanking the families of those who serve much more then they should be thanking us. When we deploy we are off in a totally new experience (good or bad) but our families are left to continue with normal life except there is a chunk missing. They spend their days wondering how we are, missing us, worrying about us. Now take the families of those fallen. Like this weekend the pregnant wife with a 6 and 11 year old who are now fatherless. The effect goes so much deeper to his friends from highschool, his aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers and sisters, his parents, the guys in his unit. Thats just one guy! We have to remember to support those whose loved ones are overseas or fallen.

This is where it turns into a cycling post. Reading through the article I attached I just want to get away from it. When I feel my emotions are building up from anything, especially grief, i feel i can transfer it through my legs and power it out of my body and into my cranks thus propelling me forward and further away from the problem. there are many times i have dedicated my thoughts to a certain person during my rides, in theory i ride for them. some of those people have been cyclists that are no longer able to because of health issues and injuries. some times it is for those ive known that have fallen on the battlefield. When i start to feel tired, start to let up just a little bit, i imagine them on the bike instead of me. What would they give to power up that climb or get down in the drops and crank. how dare i not dig deeper since i have been blessed with the ability to still ride.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44054129/ns/us_news-life/t/family-friends-remember-fallen-troops-heroes

Bikeless vacation

I got a few days off before I go into hibernation for almond harvest and so I am back home in northern idaho. The town I grew up in blew up with ironman fever so everyone here rides tt bikes. My in laws rented a cabin just outside of town that overlooks tne beautiful lake and an amazing bike path. It.goes right along the lake has few small climbs and looks like it was repaved yesterday. And of course I dont have my.bike. Its one of those paths that are so smooth that.the lack of friction makes you glide like a free wheelset up grade. So I sit on the porch and watch people fly by on their tt bikes. I only own a road bike but I have BAD tt bike fever right now. So basically it is murder watching these guys fly by. HOWEVER, I realised what a bike snob ive become. mainly guys wearing sleevless bile jerseys. They belong in tri's not on the bike path on weekend rides. Same with bags on the top tube. Tt bikes on club rides.....no bueno. I feel this town hasnt had a strong road culture long enough to know these rules. I suppose a few snobs will eventually move here and whip them in shape

First time b'loggin

I've never considered myself a writer or even good with words, much less a blogger.  But I love to read about cycling, people's experience on bikes, opinions and discussions on the professional peloten, and what other riders are doing and trying.  I've tried to find a blog like that and after years (an hour and 15 mins) of searching I have come to the conclusion that my own will have to do until I find a real one.  I don't know how this site works, but, I am hoping that if I end up getting anyone to follow me that they are able to respond to my posts. In other words, I want this to be a place where we can discuss bikes and not just hear me talk(or read me type I guess is the proper wordage).  As the self appointed mayor/president of this here blog I decide that it is alot easier on me that the use of the word "I" can be typed as "i"  and run on sentences and lack of puncuation (or excessive puncuation) is allowed and will go unjudged. 

I googled "stinky lycra" and "does this lycra make my butt look fast" to make sure i wasn't stealing them and this link came up. kinda ridiculous.  "how to get my butt big fast"    REALLY?!?!
http://ca.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110721151336AAQErmC