Fri - July 14, 2006A break, Race Season part 2After Northfield I didn't ride for a few
days. I started to miss it pretty quick and got my 'cross bike set up to train
on. Anne's family has a cabin up near Fergus Falls, MN. The roads up there are
sweet. Very few cars, rolling hills and lots of neat dirt roads. The only
problem is that I always get lost. So I strapped my GPS to my stem with some zip
ties. Marked the house as my starting point and went off for an adventure. The
only problems I've been having these days is carrying water. Two full bottles
barely gets you an hour and a half when it's this hot, and even that is pushing
it. I usually don't do a ton of long riding in the mid summer, so I am not well
versed in where to refill bottles. I used to find parks with drinking fountains,
but they seem to be in short supply when you really need them. I have some work
to do before I am fully ready for CX season. My bike fitness is decent right
now, but my technical skills are dusty and my running is poor. I am going to
start to work in some short intense stuff into my daily rountine. Those that
ride with me know that I don't have a structured "program" anymore. For me it's
a mix of how I feel what I want to accomplish next. Once my body gets used to
the efforts, then I just have to focus on doing it. I don't use a heart rate
monitor, a wattage meter or even a speedometer. Sometimes I do look at my watch
to see what time it is, but that's all the numbers I need these days. But that
GPS sure was nice to help me find my way
home...
Who is going to win the tour? How many former mountain bikers will be on the podium? Posted at 04:58 PM Read More 
Sat - June 10, 2006NVGPNext up on the plan is Nature Valley
Grand Prix. I have been anxiously awaiting this race for a few weeks now. I
haven't been feeling super this week though, I think I might have over done it a
little during my stage race last week. Too much hard riding and not enough rest.
I've pretty much been sore and tired since Sunday. I decided the best thing I
can do at this point is rest as much as possible and try to recover before the
TT on Wednesday. Honestly, I'm not too worried. First of all, I'm pretty much
not going to win NVGP. There are too many really good roadies there with strong
teams and experience. I have done 2 NRC stage races in my career so I am pretty
much a rookie at it. So without the win in mind, I really have to come up with a
new goal. There is an amateur jersey to be had, but I don't really think that
matters that much to me. Frankly I have no idea who won it last year, if they
were good, or if they are pro now. I guess my goal is to try to win a stage, or
at least, make an effort to win a stage. Last year, I made so efforts like that
and I think they were much more memorable to me than my final GC placing. I went
for it at the Red Wing stage, forcing a move that ended up forming the winning
break. Granted, I wasn't in it, I wasn't strong enough, but it was fun to
actually make a difference in the race, rather than just riding along in it. So
I guess that's my goal again this year, I want to make my presence known. I also
want to be top 10 in the opening TT. I need to take 30 seconds off my time from
last year. I think my new bike will save me at least 10 seconds, so I just need
to focus a little and knock off a few more. Who knows? I'll do my best, have
fun, and not take any crap from some of the so called "pros" out there. Last
year, this guy from Colavita cut me off and forced me out of the line. Oh the
Johnny Pro's will be out in full force. It's gong to be a good
time...
Posted at 02:10 PM Read More
Sat - May 27, 2006Mental OverloadIt's the middle of the day on a
beautiful summer like morning. I've exhausted and I haven't even ridden my bike
in a few days. Last week my stress levels were on high all week and I'm just
finally starting to calm down to normal. Anne left for Thailand yesterday.
She'll be gone until NVGP and the house feels empty without her here. It's hard
for me to get motivated to do anything. I was planning on racing in Nebraska
this weekend, but there was no way I could work out how to do it successfully.
Then I planned on going up to Duluth for some mountain biking and Tone's road
race. But this morning reality set in and I realized the best thing I can do
this weekend is chill out. I'm going to try to ride my TT bike a little today,
maybe go mtbing for fun tomorrow and monday, but I'm in full on calm myself down
mode. Whew! It feels good to say
that!
Posted at 11:55 AM Read More
Sun - April 9, 2006Thoughts on Sunday EveningMan, these last few weeks have been
tough for my mental state. I was feeling really fit and training was coming
along great, then I got a horrible cold or flu and was off the bike for over a
week. I returned to training slowly ramping it back up until by the end of last
week I was feeling fairly decent again. Saturday rolled around and all of a
sudden I was feeling the ish once again. Up and down, up and down. Today I took
the day off, my whole body has been sore all day and my chest feels tight. I
think this time it's my annual spring allergies kicking in. I can't drink enough
liquid to stay hydrated and I can't sleep well enough to feel rested. To top
that off, we had my parents cat over last night and the thing was just going
nuts, hissing making a general racket about everything... all night long.
But it's not all bad. Anne and I had a long walk out in the woods by our house. The whole time was dreaming up where a good place for a trail would be. I'll probably never make one, and probably can't anyway, but it was fun to think about. I have been stressing a lot lately about the lack of open space these days. I read that Bush authorized the sale of thousands of acres of US forest land to private industry. Every chunk of land seems doomed for development. Walking around in the woods today, we got deep enough in that there were no signs of the human infestation. It was only trees and leaves and the chirping of frogs. It's always a treat to explore a place like that. On the bike racing front, there have been ton's of exciting events this weekend. I have been closely following the reports from Sea Otter when I get a chance. Matt Kelly has been rocking it with a couple top tens and the second American in the first two events. Impressive. Tristan looks like he is having good rides as well. Muddy quagmire is the looks of that whole scene. I'm not sure if I wish I was there or not... I followed Paris-Roubaix on the live internet feed this morning. I had just finished looking at Cyclingnews special about George's custom Trek when it broke on him. Bummer bummer. He was running a Satellite fork which comes on some of the comfort road bikes. No joke, after looking at the dropout on the fork I thought to myself "I don't think I'd ride that..." It was the steer tube that busted, which is pretty much a freak event. I can't imagine how an aluminum tube would fracture like that. These guys were riding some crazy stuff.George was running carbon wheels! It just goes to show you how hard those cobbles must be though. And then to add insult to injury for Discovery. The two remaining guys finished second and fourth only to be disqualified for running a train guard! So fellow Trek fans, let's just try to pretend this years Paris-Roubaix never happened and move along... move along... nothing to see here... Posted at 08:46 PM Read More
Sun - April 2, 2006How to get motivated to ride in the rain.Yesterday was perfect out and we rode
for almost 5 hours. The hero of the day was Sara KJ who hung with the boys all
day no problem. The other hero's were Dan and Jesse who were flying. I was
hurting a bit but still won the Waconia sprint, so that's worth nothing. Sickblogger got second in some race in Iowa.
That's an good result from the blogman, congrats! So we awoke to rainy crummy
weather today. I wasn't going to ride, but then I thought, why not? First I had
to find the motivation.
Step 1 : Face to Face on iTunes - Big Choice album (Liberty for Peter L.) Step 2 : Latte and Cookie 
Step 3 : Check the rain droplet frequency. 
Step 4 : Prepare the Bonk Bike 
Step 5 : Suit up. (The camera stopped working at this point) Step 6 : Sack up and go. It turned out not to be that bad for the first hour. The rain drop frequency was about a .50 or so. I was feeling tough just being out there. When it's a crappy Sunday everyone if hunkered down inside, so I had the roads to myself. Then next hour was tougher. It started to rain harder and my fenders had reached their holding capacity. Water started coming around the edges and getting my feet wet. The real problem was my hands and forearms that were getting number by the minute. I headed home and into a hot shower. Then I headed over to Dan's for the conclusion of Tour of Flanders on OLN. All in all, a nice cycling day. I guess it is what you make of it. I did an internet interview for this guy Ashwin . He's been getting interviews from all kinds of pro's. It's a pretty neat idea and I was happy to be a part of it. Long live the Blog revolution! Posted at 07:29 PM Read More
Sat - March 11, 2006Spring's Ups and DownsThis time of year it seems like
everything has it's good and bad. Obviously, the weather has been going from
amazing to awful. It's thrown a kink in my regular training schedule, but at
least it's a sign of things to come. My fitness is overall very good this year.
I feel like I have an extra gear in the legs every time I ramp it up. Though as
of the last few days I've been extremely uncomfortable on the bike, with sore
muscles and a general feeling of sitting in a stiff chair. Or something like
that. You know the type, those old wooden straight backed numbers, and you're
forced to sit there at... the DMV or wherever and you just are not relaxed and
it's taking forever. Yeah, that's kind of how I've been feeling on the bike the
last few days. I'm also not used to sitting on the saddle with only one chamois
on. I miss that extra padding. Maybe that's too much information.
We've been going on these group rides and I've been great on those. Last season I was unconfident on the climbs, but this year, I'm already loving them. And I've only ridden my 25 pound bonk bike with fenders all spring. I think that is a good sign, I can't wait to ride a 15 pound bike again. So I guess I'll ride through the ups and downs of this time of year. It could be worse. I'm a cup's half-full kind of guy... Posted at 06:57 AM Read More
Thu - March 2, 2006Almost SpringTwo warm days in a row and it's starting
to feel a lot like spring. The roads are getting cleaner by the minute. Between
working and riding there isn't really much to report. I've been hitting it
pretty hard and getting in a lot of time the last few days. I am ahead of where
I was last year at this time and I'm not sure yet is what that is going to
translate to come 'cross season. Time will tell. I feel a focus like I haven't
had in years.
Posted at 06:23 AM Read More
Sun - February 26, 2006Waking my mind with a blog entryYes, we are riding bikes. No, we
probably didn't ride as much as you did.
I awoke at 6:30 to the cat purring loudly on my head. "Get up and make me breakfast!" She really thinks she's a princess sometimes. And she always gets away with it. I turned on my mac and pulled up iTunes, searching for the appropriate mood for a too early Sunday morning. I picked Mike Doughty because I'm so predictable. The coffee tasted too good and I gulped it before I could enjoy it. I've had too much but my needs aren't yet met. I can't stop moving my foot. Is it the coffee jitters or the smooth melody of Ways + Means? What to blog about? That's been an interesting question these days. I could tell you how we positively drilled it yesterday, going against all my rules of early season training. My eyelids froze out there. I didn't enjoy the sensation. I could write about the Olympics, but I think we're all burned out on that by now. Too bad they don't have cyclocross in the winter games. Do mountain bikers like blogging more than roadies? I think there are a lot more blogs out there created by people who started off racing in the dirt. Posted at 08:19 AM Read More
Sun - February 19, 2006I actually rode the trainer.I couldn't hold out any longer. My
cutoff point is 0 degrees and it was in the negatives on Friday and Saturday. So
I did what I'd been holding out doing and set up the trainer. There was actually
a nice layer of dust on the thing and I felt good about that. After a couple of
workout's on it this weekend I've decided that it is pretty much worthless. From
now on I'm just going to take the day off. It's not going to make me faster, in
fact it will probably burn me out. So I put it back in the garage.
Today I rode outside. It was 15 when I went out and it felt awesome. I was scared all this time thinking it was going to be so cold, but after riding the trainer I felt so liberated. It was amazing to pedal and actually go somewhere. I overdressed really bad and was sweating like a dog after a few minutes. By the end I had my jacket unzipped halfway and had to keep taking my gloves off to cool my hands down. I'll try to think of some good stuff to blog about this week. Posted at 07:57 PM Read More
Sat - February 11, 2006Snowy Roads and Red Bull
Dan, Andy and I met up for a ride this morning. It snowed a bit the last few days so the roads were a little sketchy. We headed onto the dirt after a while and that's when the ride really got exciting. Riding on ice, dirt and snow with 25c slicks on is quite a challenge. It's all about riding straight enough and making sure you don't make any sudden movements. Anyway, it was a beautiful day out with plenty of sun to keep up warm even though it was only 20 degrees out. Hollywood won the Red Bull Skyride race on wednesday. I watched some video of it and it looked really cool. For those that didn't hear about it, they raced through the skyway sidewalks in St. Paul. It sounded like a really great idea and I'm amazed they were allowed to do it. Props to that. My only gripe about the event is that I didn't get to do it. I'm not really sure how you get an invite but you would think since I've been racing around here for 10 years they might consider it. I guess I'm not in with the right circles. It looked like a lot of guys had downhill bikes or dual slalom bikes. It looked to me like it would have been the fastest on my cross bike with 28's. But since Red Bull was sponsoring it they probably had to make it look more extreme that it really was. Maybe that's why I didn't get to do it. I probably would have stacked it into a wall anyway. Of course if I finished with a bloody face it really would have looked extreme, so I think there's something to think about there if they do it again. Keep on bikin' you crazy fella's. Word. Posted at 03:16 PM Read More
Sat - February 4, 2006Real Winter Riding
It went from feeling tropical to feeling arctic in a matter of days. Hours really. Yesterday it was so cold out that my water bottle was solid in 5 miles. I don't normally think much of the cold weather, but when my face was burning like hell from the biting wind, I wondered if it was such a good idea to ride outside. But then this morning, Dan and I decided why not and we headed out for a ride at 9 am. I think it wasn't even up to 10 degrees yet. I came up with a great way to keep my feet warmer buy taking Duct tape and covering my shoes before putting on my booties. Nice. It was still really windy out today, so it was a hard ride. Dan and I were both feeling pretty good and wondering if maybe we're a little ahead of where we want to be at this time of year. Maybe it's time for a rest week. I've been reading Tristan and Nick's blogs this week jealously. They are having a training camp with a bunch of pro's out in Grand Junction Colorado. Tristan was talking about how it's no problem to ride for 4 hours, but what do you do the rest of the day? I can empathize. When the CXKing and I were out east racing cross a few years ago I'd never been so bored in my life during the week. What do you do? Back then we didn't even have Wi-Fi. I remember going to CompUSA so we could check our email. That was the highlight of the day. I think you guys should start a huge competitive game of Monopoly. Posted at 02:11 PM Read More
Sun - January 22, 2006Trainer TimeI've ridden indoors for a total of 20
minutes this season. I didn't used to be so opposed to the prospect of riding
the trainer, but these days I can't stand it. Over the years I've figured out
how to dress and how to deal with pretty much any condition. Wet weather is the
worst, and it's usually the thing that keeps me inside on those "must ride"
days. This winter has been nice and dry. There's plenty of sun from the sky and
salt on the roads and riding my bonk bike have been very enjoyable. Yesterday we
had a nice ride with some of my Nature Valley teammates. Dan, Andy M, Andy K,
and Micah M were all up for exploring some new roads Dan discovered on Google
Maps. Game Farm Road was pretty sweet. The bonk bike lived up to its name and I
was feeling pretty bad for the last half of the ride. Getting home and eating
was all I could think of. Today it was sunny and it looked warm, but there was
some tough wind out there and it was quite cold. I rode as many dirt roads as I
could. They are pretty much glare ice with rocky pebbles everywhere so needless
to say they are very sketchy. Almost as sketchy as going on a group ride with
Sickboy on his fixed gear with the whiney brake, but not quite. I was all about
exploring today. If I didn't know where a road went I took it. I wasn't cold at
all this weekend, despite the low temps and I'm hoping to keep off the trainer
as long as possible this season.
Posted at 07:37 PM Read More
Mon - December 26, 2005A Near Year of Bike RacingMy off season is officially behind me. I
am getting (relatively) serious now. The other day I thought about how much I'd
been not training and I started to miss the winter riding and feeling fit and
all that. I got some cool stuff from Trek this Christmas, a little present to
myself. For my winter bike I picked up some Bontrager Select wheels and Fenders.
I am in the process of building up the ultimate winter road bike. It is going to
be bomber, but slow. I think it's going to be a bonk bike, maybe if I finish
building it today I'll go try it out. Lifting weights is really what I need to
do this winter. I've found that if I do nothing, my weight stays the same, but I
get soft in my belly. The other day I lifted and played racquetball and I don't
remember being this stiff ever. Honestly, ever. Some part of it might have to do
with me getting closer to the big 30. This year (2006) my racing age will be 28
and I can't help to think that soon I'll be able to compete in the masters 30+
category. It's been a while since I've won a stars and bars jersey, so maybe
I'll have to stay fit until then and try to pick one up.
I hope everyone had a good Christmas. I got some fun stuff, gave away some fun stuff and had a good time with the family. I think my Dad got the best gift, a fiberglass, gas-powered, remote control racing boat. Awesome. I got a cool GPS unit so I won't get lost while riding in strange places which I think is pretty neat. Of course, everyone already knows that I am a directional genius . The old Newsline will be getting more interesting now. What can you expect? Soon will be a complete review and specs of the bonk bike. Training updates, thoughts on the state of cycling, and riding in the cold. And other fun stuff. Today's music : The Gorillaz Posted at 09:14 AM Read More
Thu - December 8, 2005XC SkiingToday I went skiing at Baker Park with
Dano. People always ask me if I ski and I say, "Of course." All of our family
vacations for years were ski trips. In fact, when I was searching for colleges
to go to, Montana State won because it was the closest to good skiing. But all
that was alpine skiing. You know, when you get to ride up the chairlift on your
butt and then ski down really fast and sweet and jump off cliffs and stuff.
Today was not fast or sweet. I haven't been training a lot and when I get out on
the skinny skis I pretty much feel the worst ever. I am a horrible nordic skier.
See the thing is, I really like all those gears and whatnot on my bike. If I
feel crappy, I can usually shift into a different one and I start feeling
better. That's one reason I never really got into the whole singlespeed deal. I
really love shifting gears. Anyway, I see XC skiing to be a lot like riding a
singlespeed. You can't shift, you just pedal, or pole plant or whatever, faster.
Dano kicked my butt today. I had to actually stop on one big hill. That's like
equivalent to getting off and walking your bike, or at least putting it into the
22X34 or whatever. But I didn't have a damn granny gear.
But in all actuality it was great to be out on the skis. I really do like to do some different activities this time of year. Anne and I played racquetball at Lifetime yesterday. We don't even know the real rules. We just run around like mad and try not to hit each other in the head with the racquet. It's important to be safe while cross training... Posted at 05:22 PM Read More
Thu - August 18, 2005Getting back into racing.
I have decided to forego a trip to Michigan for Ore to Shore. I am a little bummed I'm not going, but I had to make the call. It would have just been too much travel right now. Anne and I are heading to Glacier National Park in Montana next week and we have a lot of preparation left before our departure. Instead of O2S I will be racing at Spirit Mountain on Sunday. I heard from Sarah KJ that it is a rocking course this year and I had to go check it out. This week I have been riding pretty hard and my form is sort of returning. I don't expect much out of Sunday's race, but I want a good hard workout. The FCCC hardcore crew was out again on Wednesday night. It wasn't the most pleasant weather ever, but we hammered through it anyway. Everyone was putting in great efforts and we got a good ride in without too much rain. So I am sure everyone is looking forward to actually reading a race report on this blog and you'll get one soon. As per the photo. It is approaching 'cross season. I got another Alpha Q fork for my bike #2, which will probably become my bike #1 once it gets all tricked out. Last years bike was about 18 pounds and I'm hoping to go just under that with the addition of a few carbon parts here and there. Stay tuned for photos of that, It's going to be one sweet ride. Thanks for checking in! See you in Duluth! Posted at 09:36 PM Read More
|
Categories
Calendar
XML/RSS Feed
Team Jersey
 Counter
Archives
Statistics
Total entries in this blog:
Total entries in this category: 56 Published On: Jul 14, 2006 04:58 PM |
||||||||||||||