What happens on Diablo stays on Diablo

Funny how these creative concepts, problem solving, and resolving conversations come into my head one after another on the climb to the summit.....

And fade into memory on the way home.

Kneewarmers, people. Bring em along.

Track Hack

Two sessions today- the beginner and Larry's intermediate one.

I wanted to get the rest of the mandatory stuff out of the way in case I can get my butt down there to race next year, and had a good time.

Larry's was especially good good stuff, we got to experience the miss'n'out, which is a devilish concoction,but a great way to get pack awareness. I finally understand a few terms bandied about, like blue line, Stay, Rail, etc.


Very cool day and I got some solid efforts in, the session was planned well where you could go hard or not, I chose, ummm, hard.
I think a good meal @ Fresh Choice, some sleep, and a couple hours riding around on the lame-o group ride tommorrow should fit the recovery bill nicely.

Working the big OT tommorrow afternoon and will miss the biggest party of the year down in the Cruz, but I gotta pay for the bike habit somehow :-)

Looking forward to the pics....

Paris- Tours- the new Ambien

Hit the Live-no-more Rodeo Grounds today for some bike rodeo,
Shane and his band of brothers are really getting the course wired, much nicer than Labor Day when I was last there.
Small fields, probably reflective of Candlestick tomorrow, but for my money, a good good race.
40 steps to oblivion went pretty well, which bodes well for December.
Cesar is about unbeatable right now in the SS, as he made the front group with the line of loons blowing apart into the breeze, and I went all Cat 4 and actually thought the loons behind him would keep it together.....
One of the most subtle lies in bike racing to tell yourself," it's fine back here. They'll never let those guys go....... I'm saving up and riding smart..... no pain,.... no pain.... awww fukkkk."

Anyhow, good burrito fest afterwards @ Tequilas' on Main, a cup of Cole after visiting Merkle's lair of tires and hoops, and the most boring race I've watched this year on Versus.
At least until the last 5-8 K, when Pozzato and Gilbert took off with Kroon getting dragged along.
Watch those cameras, boys, Robbie M is a madman to hold it up after smacking the camera with his head and Oscar Freire did a nice job keeping it from being much worse.
I'll miss the Stick tommorrow, not my favorite race anyway, though the racing should be good stuff and tactical as all get out on that flat dump.
Looking forward to the stories...
J

CCCX #3- Fort Ord- Revenge Of The Sand Peoples

New venue,
I was excited, I haven't raced over on this side of Fort Ord for probably 8-10 years, I remember much much sand, surf guitar music playing from giant speakers on top of somones' van, a girl knocking the Seal into a pole on a sandy descent, tough crosser girls even back then, and lots of sand.
Rolled down nice and late loving the 1:30 start, made pancakes for the girls before I left even!
The course was very smooth single track mixed with a few long road sections, one longish run between barriers that I listened to someone smarter than me and ran, rolling the bike next to me, kind of different but it worked fine, and a sand ride-up was the crux and right in front of the vocal parking lot crew, but the 42 x 17 was for once the right gear.
I used a bottle cage today with my feeder of preference off shuttling children to B-day parties, but with no shouldering the bike it wasn't a big deal.
I went with Kenda Small Block Eights today, and should have listened to the instincts and went with a little more knob, like the Panaracers.
We started all together today with the full A contingent, adding a different dimension, as the SS guys were at the end of a very long line of suffering by the first singletrack.
If you missed that bus, homeboy,it was over right there, and I went and bobbled a couple of times in the turns, the SB8's were fine unless I missed the perfect line and only the perfect line would do in that crowd and at that speed, then I would slide into some interesting contortions and was OTB by a lap in or so.
Hung with some stragglers from the geared race for about 3 laps, but kept getting gapped on the long asphalt sections from them.
Fitness felt pretty good, I settled into a rhythm and saved a little, the front group was making a solid 30 seconds a lap on me and lapped me with 4 to go, and I figured I might need a little sumthin' if one of those hapless souls caught out behind me caught up, kind of turned the dial to 7 on the suffer-meter and rode a good hard effort.
Cleaned the sandy hill every time, roughly 10 laps for a hour twenty, a good hard day and a fun fun time.
The buy-cell boys were on fire again today and stayed on the Strawberry/Rocklobster choo choo early, they seem to be able to turn their bikes much better than me, played their cards right for 1,2, that bunch seems to swap the W every week, but they are definitely the ones to watch in the single speeders.
Next week a race close enough to ride to, and I think that's exactly what I'll do. 33 steps of pain and wholesome goodness, repeat till stupid :-)

Blahblahblah

Urp de Urp

My oh my, all the cross happenings, I meant to show up, but had to work Sunday afternoon and began to stress over getting across the Bay Bridge with 30 minutes to spare, and how I like to stay and hang out anyway, and getting right into a car after sucks, and as Vick would say, I am excellent at talking you out of racing, and I did it to myself.

Sounds like a course for heavy clinchers, ummm, like the ones I'm riding right now.

And 50 guys in both the geezer fields is very impressive and cool.

And that SS field looked to be heating up as well.

Anyhow, I got a new SS MTB that I traded with the Seal for my old SS MTB that fit us both better- a 18" for a 17", both steel, just a little better fit, and came home with an extra bike by mistake, a converted road fixie that will be perfect for the rollers in a month or two.

I love silly bikes like this, The Seal built this completely out of parts he found in the trash, nice re-use!

Speaking of re-use, I'm a little frazzled answering questions aboutmy craigslist posting-http://sfbay.craigslist.org/eby/bik/442677243.html

" What is the size?" Ummmm, I posted it.Let me decipher for you, though. I understand we don't all get the metric system round these parts :-)

"what are the components" Ummm, I thought I got that one too. It works perfectly.

Or the famous e-mail with no questions or preface- "200 bucks."

The more I polish it, move it around the garage, the more I appreciate the old girl and want to keep her.I start to admire the sensibility of a pump peg, or four bottle cages, or a nice rack and bag for the back and how nice riding to the farmers market and coming home with dinner in that bag is, and dammit, I know I promised to clear some junk out, but come on!

This is how come I have 7 bikes in the garage. Easy to buy them, hard to let them go.

I went a little over the edge with this weeks training, lots and lots of tempo and group riding, topped off with riding the SS crosser yesterday on the Sunday hammerfest, trying to get those legs to spin fast fast fast for a hour, a nice micro-cycle of stress, take a day easy, then hit it again.

Finally some stress in my life is resolved and I can push it again on the training side of life,my body doesn't care what type of stress I introduce, when the reservoir is filled, it will react negatively.

A hard lesson for me to learn , that the improvement comes from the recovery. Employing solid recovery strategies even while I couldn't train much helped me through the summer of hell, basic stuff, no mumbo-jumbo, eating right, a multi-vitamin, stretching, building strength and aligning my body has left me in good shape, not very fast, but able, for example, to fall on my face and be able to race that weekend still.

All good stuff and I look forward to this Saturday , a fun filled day for all.I'll be trained up and tired, but will show up and give the gas until I implode, loving the sweet pain of cross again.

J

It's bizness time.....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGOohBytKTU

I gotta learn how to get the video to embed into Blogger...

Just loving these guys, though.

Happy Anniversary, Miz C!

J