Send the pain below

Finally some nice weather, a little acclimatization going on for me, I rode home over Redwood yesterday on the crosser and had to stop at a markey in Castro Valley for 2 paydays and some water, still had a headache all night even slugging water like crazy, but thank got for paydays, cheap and almost the same nutritional profile as a energy bar for half the price.
Today I hit the early WOT ride and enjoyed the entire ICCC cat 3 team hammering towards Berkeley, till I flatted and had to reaarange the plans a little.
Rode around until 9 and caught the second version, but after descending Dublin Canyon, found that the paving contractor had closed the road to bikes, and how screwed is that, especially if you rode all day like out from the east bay and were trying to get home to Oakland and didn't really feel like retracing your route, then climbing Norris/ Palomares.And they are letting cars through, kind of bullshit IMHO.
Anyway, this threw the bunch into disarray and I opted to ride with a teamie over Diablo to WC back to the pad, ending up with 95 miles, the last 15 or so getting slower and slower,very charming to have a Boulevard Stalker suck my wheel for 5 miles down and when I finally sit up and move over to share a little of my bonking pain, attack me like he's winning the Ronde De Danville or sumpthin and ride 300 meters in front all the way to Danville.
Mr. Freshly Showered No Sock Dude , that was a chump move, but no worries, if that floats yer boat, have a nice day and all that.
Turkey chili with cornbread crumbled over it is a great recovery food, and the afternoon watching Amstel Gold and the ToG was real nice stuff.

Looking forward to the reports from the Firestone and the Madera pain fest, tommorrow it's onto the MTB for a little bit, we have this race coming up and I want to do us proud....
Already 1200.00 bucks in the bucket, we are doing excellent and it warms my heart to see the generosity from people.
Now to figure out a theme for the campsite.....

Go be a tourist

has been the name of the game today, I have been punishing myself in the gym 3-5 times a week with the Core Performance routines and starting the longish rides at least 2 days a week, hard to believe that 3 hours of high cadence work can leave me so damn tired, but I really am starting from a ways back and need to stay patient this spring to do well this fall.

Anyhoo , It was all about soigneur duties today down in the SC.

A little rain over the summit at 5:30 am looked gloomy, but the day got nicer and nicer.

Miz C's race started late, at 7:20, absolutely crappy race management, very unimpressed with the organization, they ran out of drinks, food, etc for the slower runners, probably the ones that need the support the most.

Little C and I bounced ASAP for some breakfast and found the Seabreeze Cafe, I remember a blog entry from somewhere about this spot this winter, and through cyberspace found it again, it's not Foodie Friday but who cares and I gotta plug it, a GREAT tofu scramble and fresh out of the oven cinnamon roll with some dark cafe and lots of salsa over some non-greasy homefries, just perfect.

Miz C came shuffling in nursing a sore toe/hip/knee/cramp wheels came off thing, not a happy camper she was and that damn running will beat ya up quick.

But the people watching was superb.

The cruz has a few interesting folks, but it wasn't the locals that really caught my eye, it was the runners . Before the race they all look good, even the unfit. Some wear the tri- emblems- a bike jersey in club cut over running shorts with elastic laces and a been -there- done that running hat.A few cover themselves with clothes from head to toe, and others wear as little as possible, even in 51 degree rain, and I wonder what message they are trying to send to the others in the tribe. My favorites are the old guys with baseball hats and cotton t-shirts, wheezing through the warmup, been doing this stuff since before Jim Fixx, got their New Balance order down to a T.

Wait till the finish and it's a different game, the early focused ones, digging into the pain cave, the medal awaiting them.
The next group of exuberant ones, PR's for this bunch, the training has paid off and they had the race of their lives/ year/ season and they are savoring every moment as they can hear the announcer faintly from a block away.
Then the various finishing looks start to show, the hollow eyes that refuse to look at the bystander to not let the pain out of control, the jogging together saving private ryan move, not leaving your buddy behind no matter what, the whoop-de -doos that are smiling like a boxer that will fall if he gets hit once more, hoo-rah-ing to keep the negative thoughts away.

Or the folks that give out a quiet "thanks" when they hear a cheer for them and keep on trucking ....
"The eyes are the windows to the soul".

Winners and losers

Winners rarely show it off, unless to make fun of themselves.

Losers revise history to make themselves feel better.

Winners always choose to help when they can, even when things are not so pleasant or smell so nice.

Losers choose the blind eye.

Winners realize the world is round.

Losers can't see beyond the horizon.

Winners have perspective.

Losers go for the easy way out, every time.

Winners walk through the doors of life, ready for the challenges of the other side.

Losers hold onto the jamb for dear life.

I get to choose every day.

Just a Little Bit....

The break is over and the work has begun again, it feels great to build a schedule and plan and dream, anything is possible at the beginning of a season, before life and genetics foul it up :-)

I actually took a week off the blogs as well, spent some time in cold drizzly LA, running some and eating lots of great Japanese food, but just letting the mind recover and allowing the fire to build was so worth it..

Sprints tonight felt great, we have a tiny group out here in pleasanton on Wednesdays and I try to think of new and devious ways to amuse ourselves... tonight was small ring restriction for all the grownups and our one Junior phenom gets to use whatever she wants, nice to spin the legs out and keep some snap in them,
The strength program is morphing as well, moving more and more to developing speed and power as opposed to big beach muscles that are useless when that gawdammn runup shows it's face in November at Watsonville, mmm, watsonville.

Actually commuted last week on the SS, but need a bigger front ring, it took 2 hours to go 25 miles, so four hours of riding on a SS was a little much, especially after digging ditches all day, I had to stop and eat a couple of vegan trail mix cookies on the way home as I was running on fumes, but still real cool to commute again after a 5 year layoff, even for only one day. I'm thinking a 42 ring if I can dig one up and a 15 track cog spun onto the back will tighten up my hack pedaling stroke a little and help me get some much needed training hours in a busy week.

Hope you all enjoy the Otter, I'm hard at work on call this weekend, but I look forward to the reports and perhaps I can carve out a little time to catch some island stories soon ....
J

J

All the things I meant to do.....

Are getting done now and it feels great!

I finished the walkway in the front in September, and just now in April got in all the landscape, a couple of nice trees, some sage, lavender and rosemary, looks good and will look better in a year or so, now for some lighting and color and we'll be good.

Went for a nice 2 hour run in Tilden with Miz C on Friday and still my old bones ache, even with jogging slowly. Stuff I stay away from in the bike racing season, the slow trail runs really slow my slow self down, but the views of both Suisun and S.F. bays were beautiful. When I tore my ankle up in 2002 I was training for a 50 miler up on this ridge and used to run a different section every wednesday, but never really checked out the area down in Tilden, but really nice running, a couple thousand of climbing in 8 miles or so, but smooth and shady.

Heading out this afternoon for a MTB cruise with the Seal after he returns from his morning bay swim, nice and easy for the both of us, but my attention is beginning to focus on this now.
We have the Chico , Kareem, the Seal, Big Jimmy V, and myself going again in June.
Shifting the focus to giving back a bit and it's good.
I'll be revving the fundraising engine back up soon, we got a matching sponsor for this years' contributions and I really really want to get them to write a big check :-)

Anyhow, the race reports sound fun and all, but I see nothing I want to train for for months now except for some loony century the Nome wants to do, but it's good to not have to train right now and stay unstructured for a bit.
Back to the home improvement store....

3


It's been a big week for me, not only was Hanford my last race as a four, but my Level 3 USAC coaching application was approved as well!

In a strange way, the category upgrade has been kind of just unnerving, rather than satisfying. I know exactly what I'm getting into, and still got into it.
Big jump, here I come!

The coaching license everyone derides as a book test, but have you read that book?
I did, twice.
I actually thought the sections on coaching children very informative, not a area that I have any expertise in at all, save for Little C's ice cream league soccer team, but an excellent set of pointers one can use with any new athlete.

Anyhow two days into the big break and still no bikey for Gianni, thoug I believe tommorrow the Sprints will see my face, but only to do some skills work and hang for a while with the folks....

Hanford

Damn proud of the team today.

We somehow missed the W but the aggression was highly gratifying to see.

Merkely, X doggie, and The Vickerator all spent much time OTF, with basically the entire CVC team and a few unattached guys blindly doing CVC's bidding needed to chase Mike down.

When you have a 15 man team, playing the one dimensional card is kinda sad if you ask me.

I flubbed it at the end, jist couldn't go no more and got the X and Vick swarmed, but they fought it off and got some placings as well, very nice, fellas!

Too tired to write about it more right now ,must get on with my season break before the real training kicks up again.

Car Talk

Show the colors, baby!

Dang Merkle and Alicat!

Those dang thinmints- one box destroyed already and the other in the freezer.
Yer killin' me!

I keep eating those, I'll have to do more of these fat-ass forties.....

Good to see Chico at a race, and I hope it went well for ya!

The race- without the wind, that shit was bunk. I don't try to hide my distaste for 60 man bunch sprints.I make a living with my body every day, it don't work, I don't either.
I was good, then I was boxed, got out and came up on the top 8 or so, then had a guy pedal backwards at me.Held the line and gave up with a sour taste that only ice-cold thinmints seem to cure.............

CVC Tower Criterium RR

Sunday was gonna be a goodie.

I did this race last year with Double and Merkeley, and snuck off in a early break, the first and only time that one has worked for me :-)

This year the field was much bigger and the guys were fresher, as well as no teammates.

0330 am the phone rings. Wrong number.

Now I'm up and thinking bike racin'.
I drift back off and it rings again at 4:30.
Party party party at the Quality Inn.
Now I'm up.
I think about going over to the race early to race with the young bucks, eat a little sumpthin', then fall out for 15 minutes, when my alarm goes off.
I slowly move my stuff to the car and make my way to Starbucks on the course.

It's still dark and the racers signing up look fresh, overly alert, and very young.

I decide I can't deal with this crap right now and go back to the car and drink a couple of cups of java and talk myself into getting on the trainer and warming up at least.
MAsters 4/5 goes at 9:20 and the warmup is better than I expected, the soreness from yesterday is gone and the fire in the belly is coming around, I stage up as we watch the womens' 3/4 race.
This crit is my all time fave, the 180 was dry this year and you could push it if you had the right line/ gear coming out.
Big representation from CVC, Simply Fit?, and Action. Centurion.
The race starts agressively, with many splits with all the teams represented, but in the 4/5 ranks people often are too conservative/ chase their own breaks.
We all gotta learn, no?
Both Nelson and I are in just about everything, and the primes are nice and fat, I got a nice bottle of wine for the team party this year!
1 to go and I got myself boxed , I was trying to keep up front and hold a position,but with the field fanned all the way out and no team driving, very hard to do on the wider spots.
We hit the main drag with the barriers and I decide if I want it I had to get up now, so I sprint up the hole next to the barriers and grab 3rd wheel, behind the guy that won Merced when I went for the woods by borrowing my spot in the lineup.
This fine fellow has downgraded after a few years at the upper levels and is a nice wheel to follow, so we urge the CVC guy on the front to line it out and he jumps for the chicane., with me in the hip pocket.
FOS, FOS and we make the turn with 160-175 meters to go,and I just tried to not screw it up, and managed to get around him on the line.
Big time atmosphere down in Fresno, lot's of great racing for the lower categories as well, and a incredible race organization that helped me all weekend. If they didn't have the answer, they found someone who did.
Incredible the amount of work going into this thing, all benefitting local charities.
Thanks again, CVC!

CVC ITT

Drove down Saturday morning, caught up with the 123 squad as they were heading back to the lair.
I have been whining about no time in the saddle, especially on the TT rig, but hey, it's only 28K, right?

Wind was quartering from the SW and I heard from several people to expect it to reverse itself during the afternoon, so a distinct possibility of getting head/ head and not in a good way.

Got in a perfect warmup, used a whole hour, got off a couple times and worked on some new stretching I have been learning about, tried to open up all the zones and get loose in the flexors, which have been tight during my 45 minute roller sessions.

Made it to the line early, keeping the stress down is important, I would say I felt so-so, but was willing to go hard early and take the chance of a blowup.

Guy counts down just like on TV with the fingerdoodle move and I'm off, 10 stomps and settle. I push the Lap button and see I'm already at LT just from excitement,I try to calm myself down and get to it.
I had two gaps in front of me in the start order giving me minute men and then no one, so I just tried to work with the wind and take what it would give me, dropping a cog, going back up one, better with no face shield on the helmet, I like to feel the wind a little and hear things.
I passed my first minute man about 5 K in, then my second one stayed out there longer, till we hit the slight rollers and I could spin it up a bit and catch him.
I was about 10 beats over threshold by 10K in, and just tried to keep consistent, passing a womens ' division, refusing to look back, especially with a aero helmet, amd embrace the wind instead of hating it, which was now quartering more into the front of me.
Not enough power to push the really big cogs and I found spinning it up was faster anyway.
Hit the 1K hill and it was gut check time, with a bonus check, when it flattened out about 500 meters in and I had to leave the voices at the door and drop another cog, yum, yum that cytomax tastes good again, ooooh and it's over.
I had no idea only having 2 minute men how I was looking in the results, no real feedback from the watch that forgot to stop and I felt kind of crappy with no good form, sliding up, knees out more than they should be, back probably hunched like mad.
Rode back while bonking my ass off, only had a vague idea where I was and where I was going, I figured Fresno was somewhere up there, probably riding back hurt more than the race effort itself, as the cramps really set in.
My experience with cramps- calf cramps, yellow zone
Quads, especially while riding home in the car with buds, can even be good for a chuckle or two.
Hammies are no fun and can end a nice race.
Ass cramps are no fun.
Ass cramps while lost in the heartland of California really suck.
Only hobbling around and Ibuprofen help.
And large Coca-colas.

Anyhow, after lots of hobbling, chatting, and Coca-colas, the results were announced to the 20 people left in the parking lot and I won the damn thing.

Celebrated by going to Sweet Tomatoes solo and watching Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle for the 15th time, big bachelor night out!

A little perspective here, I was minutes off of the big time guys, not just the pros but the really strong masters guys, especially the demons of Sattley.

Trophies are just damn cool things.
And CVC put on one hella-cool race this weekend.

Bookends

Thanks to CVC for putting on such an excellent weekend!

This one goes on the calendar every year, great TT course and one of my favorite crits.

More report to come, but I'm a little fried right now and would just ramble anyway.

Old Mclane recap/ rant

Well, it's been almost a week and my head is slowly clearing and the legs feel decent, and I finally got the urge to jot a few things down....

Kudos to the teams in the 35+4 race, ones of note were the Pegasaurs, the EMC boyos, Sierra, CVC, and even Webcor and Davis, both who had like two racers.
All of the above attempted to animate at least for a lap until the old dads got tired and the reality of setting up for a 60 rider bunch sprint became a reality.
We probably tired each other out with all those attacks and counters, as the individual riders made hay while the sun shone in the final results.

That was a crazy finale to a crazy day, with riders careening into the dirt every turn. The only safe place was right at the head of the storm, with most of the field hanging back while the big P tried to control at the front.

Road racing in the grampa Cat 4's?

Lame.

Waiting for a bunch sprint and chasing everything down, even your own team?

Like watching paint dry, and yet many people encourage it, as it seems like the only way up and out of the 4's unless your talent is on the higher level of the curve.

Are we teaching people the finer points of bicycle racing, as is claimed?. A totally different game being played on the 123 stage with strategy interspersed with a savage beating every few minutes. Real bike racin'.

Anyhow, I'll shut the rant off now :-)

CVC for this lame Cat 4 starts Saturday, and I'm more than a little concerned over my total lack of TT preparation, unless sitting on the rollers for 45 minutes in the morning is gonna help, in the bars or not., but it's cool, I'm riding Snowflake, my oldest bike, and me and her have seen more than a few barbeques along the way.
Matter of fact, I think Snowflake is gonna get some bloggage soon, like a whole ode to the 'Flake.
See ya'll soon,
J

Feel the burn

Oooooh how are those airline miles stacking up? Check this out- the siren of stupid endurance challenges is calling me again....
Note the race promoter in the moustache- " People call me a sadist- I'm just a provider of pain ."

This is my tree

This is my tree.

But back to that later.

First up for me today was the elite 4/5 race, I got there early and it was pouring, but I kind of like the rain and actually the pavement was fairly grippy after raining all night.

Got a good warmup in and came to the line, a few mice, a strong 3rd Pillar contingent, and a few CVC, as well as a strong Berry. 47 starters made up the biggest field I saw today, and within 10 laps we shed half the bunch.

I saw some goofy riding by a couple of select riders, but for the most part 3rd Pillar rode hard to set up their sprinter and by keeping things decently fast we found ourselves on the last corner, myself in the 3 spot, can't ask for better position, well I needed one more cup of coffee or sumpthin'because somehow in my half frozen, half waterlogged state, I elected to start my sprint in a 12 cog, which only works if your cashing a check from a Protour team and are jumping @40+.

So eight was my number and I'm happy, just trying to get those top tens and stay alive, but I resolved to check the back cog before going the next time :-(

35 4/5 was up next with no break and I changed into another jersey with the new number at the car and we are off, I'm already feeling the fumes I have been running on for months and am getting a few crampy twinges, but thankfully we roll out at the grampa pace and slow from there.

A few attacks are attempted, but CVC being the only dominant team in the race is on them quickly, I joined a couple likely efforts when the blue and white were represented, but nothing was going good and getting separation, so I figured a bunch sprint was in our future, especially with every one of us having a fair amount of rest.

Typical 35+4/5 race, all negative racing and slow down and play chicken at the end, the last 5 laps got slower and slower, with more and more braking and absolutely stupid lines being taken.I attempted to do a little coaching with folks, we here on the spidey side of life are focusing hard on developing safe racers out of our sport team and womens bunch as well and have learned a couple of good lessons along the way, but it fell on deaf ears for the most part.

One to go and we enter corner 2 ( the one on the picture, which is sporting a drain grate roughly 3 feet off the apex but was fine all day), I'm in the 2 spot behind the CVC leadout when I hear the brakes being applied coming out of the apex, bad bad bad things are happening quickly, as his bike drifts out to the curb while coming back at me fast.

Options- You can set this to a little Digital Underground if ya like...

A- grab every brake I own, which are ridiculously wet since I wasn't finding the need to APPLY THEM ALL THE TIME and knock the whole bunch down behind me

B- Hit his back wheel and topple into the whole bunch behind me

C- as the curb/ bike gap closes, bunnyhop the island, brush tree A, slide around tree B, and hop off onto N street into open traffic

Well C is what I did, so yo listen up...

The damage- none. A tire track on Merceds' beeyutifull lawn and a scuff on the left shoulder. Now if I could have got back in from the far side of the island, now that would have been a real whalerider, as it was , I was too busy calling them all a whole lotta bad words and really in disbelief I made it out of that one alright.

No t-shirt for missing the trees, though.

Apology for the brake check, ummm, no.

circles and lots of em

Well since I needed to stay home this weekend and miss Dinuba/ make some dough answering a pager, I thought I would hit the track for a beginner session this weekend.

Merkeley has been talking it up for a while, and we actually were planning a trip a couple of weeks ago that got canceled by rain, so we went to the Devil Mountain that day and Merkle gave me a look at the new hillacious him, but I digress and the dynamic duo are off on a beach this weekend, , so I soloed down there this morning.

What a fun 3 hours of cycling, having been around bikes for a while now I am a admitted bike geek even though the pocketbook does not allow me to indulge deeply, but just checking out all the geeky aero stuff and geeky frames and mindset was very amusing to me, we all have our little subsets of this geeky world of geeky bikey folks and coming from tris I thought I was hardened to such things, but oh it goes so much deeper and I had lots of fun just checking out the scene......

One thing I noticed was all the ink, leg ink, sleeves, chests, lotsa doodling going on out at Hellyer.

The other thing was the big people, not you ordinary bikey climber folks, mostly fit,and tree trunks would be an exaggeration, but I actually felt... small.

We got a good talk by the session leader and we were off for a 30 lap warmup, then some talking, then bridging across, a talk, a TTT, some sprints out of a small group, finished off with a 10 lap scratch race that I punked out of halfway through.

One thing I really liked was the emphasis on safety, we had a wide range of abilities that would give me pause sometimes when following another rider closely, but I think for the most part we kept it safe, one touching wheels crash, but there is a lot to remember with all the lines and rules, at least at first.

Right up my alley, even though my fitness is slowly going away every week, I still am a student of the game and really dug the pure attacks and speed with no watching for cars and crap.

I rented a bike from the association for 5 bucks and got a nice Langster a little small for me but I made it work, a nice bike and pretty stiff. Real different than the springy steel fixie I used to tool around on/ commute to the O on, when I sprinted on the Specialized, it seemed like it all went to the ground, very cool! I might have to pick me one up for the summer racing season, I could see racing under the lights on a hot summer night, pretty fun and a excellent workout!

I would definitely recommend it and will be pushing a bigger team day soon, it seems that all the skills really would transfer to the road, as well as the leg speed and fitness would be fantastic for the racing season coming up.

sure is quiet round here

Little C left for the annual rite of passage in fifth grade life known as science camp today.

Her pile of bags was bigger than her as she waited for the bus..

She was pretty tough about it till the doors closed!

You would think we'd be taking vacation days, swinging from the rafters, watching grownup movies at 5 pm....

Instead we leave the TV on for some background noise and I'll probably fall asleep to Kuurne- Brussels- Kuurne on the Cycling TV again.

Prety gawdamn sad, if I do say so.

The underwater boogie

A few things that interest me-

Perpetuem looks just like Krusteaz pancake mix and tastes like it too.

How much sand and water can ones' eyes hold after riding in the rain all weekend? I'm still wiping out goobers and it's been 24 hours.

Biting off more than one can chew- my motto for life.

Trading pulls with pro tri-guys- dumb.

The mind says yes but the body sobs no.

Holes underwater are still holes.

I like racing in driving rain.

Maybe those six free sessions of EAP at work would help with this.

Gimme Shelter

Saturday afternoon I shot up to Chico and rode with Big Vick and Kareem up to Centerville, welcome to Helltown, Baby! Note the shanty in the background and insert your own banjo music here. There was then a adjournement to the Bear for some beverages and burgers.

Hung out with Chico-cyclist and Chico-cyclista at their lovely home, thanks for the hospitality and directions, ya'll!

Much Peets was drank , much bike talk wuz talked, and we all crashed out early for the big day.

Got lot's of 411 on the ride, what to look for, etc, by the Chico crew, but seeing 2- 300 folks on a little country road still gets quite interesting.

Soon we turned onto Lassen road(where the race blew up last year) and things got rolling a bit. Big difference from last year was the lack of wind, keeping things together and rolling at a nice clip.

A few early moves were made, but without all the teams represented, and goofballs chasing the bridges and dragging the pack, it was nothing doing till Corning, where I found myself easing off the front with a Spine fella. Easing, easing, easing and I'm not sure what's going to go down being my clueless Cat 4 self, but even my goofy ass knows that those guys are never up there without a good reason, so I hang in there and boom, things go quickly with spine and the spider, as well as a Davis guy, I believe.

I help for probably 5 rotations before I'm blown up and deeply outclassed by my company, and retreat to my customary position deep in the shelter of the herd, but they are outasight quickly in a interesting turn of events.

Nome and I try a simple handoff of clothing and somehow we BOTH drop his vest, causing me to have to ride back for it, drop it off, and get a quick lesson in holding onto cars at 30+ to get back on, and if anyone has some good pointers on this skill, I'm all ears.

Longest ride of the year for me has been probably 60 miles so far, and the first twinges come by Paskenta. I kept hearing about the "dirt is coming soon", like the frickin' grim reaper, but I have no idea where I am and somehow missed the turn for the 75 mile option , so I'm reasonably committed, but can't see through hills and so even with my efforts to stay well-positioned, hit the dirt road about 50-60 back.

Where all hell breaks loose.

All I can say if you ran a Michelin softie-race, or a Vredi-stank-in -the -dirt, I'm sorry. I hope the cornering prowess on those smooth roads was apparent. I ran Conti 4000's in the nice beefy 28 range and drove through every goddamn hole with no real worries. Pop-Pop- fizz-fizz was heard many times in the next 4 miles, but I was digging it big time, driving a big cookie over the gravel and trying to bridge the widening gap with a few like minded souls. We hit the asphalt and it was hero time for the 8 guys or so in my group, about a quarter mile to get back.

Many times in the lower ranks people panic and attack out of the bunch, killing the whole effort, but these guys hung with it and we got back on to the lead pack, where I languished attempting to eat salt pills and drink lots, as the hammie and right quad were getting pretty bejiggety.

Nobody told me about the rollers, the ones that on a normal ride would be a nice little effort, but today looked like the Mortirolo in front of me. I made it over two, but I could see the front guys hopping to it on the next one and I was 30 feet short, with a spectacular implosion driving into the gravel on the side.

I rode easy and looked at my map, resigning myself to a life of solitude, when the bus blew into town, and a nice, 23 mph bus it was. Tandems, racers, and some strong century guys, but just right for me for about 20 miles, until the strong roadies that had been dropped/flatted in the gravel arrived and began to attack each other at 28 mph for the dubious honors of, oh 45th or so.

My quad survived for a while, but soon it locked up and I had to small ring it back to the finish line and Chico's truck.

98.5 miles, 4:30 ride time.

Again, thanks to the Chico bunch for putting up with my requests and and Chico Velo for quasi-putting it on.

I'll be back and train a little the next time.

And I believe on the way out of town I saw a Petit hanging in a paceline going down 32, so good job finishing that monster!

Blah blah dee blahddy da.......

The blog has been sucking more than usual lately-

Mostly due to me being stuck in the new square life and riding in my garage at 0430, going to sleep by 9 pm with the lunch packed and the timer set on the coffee pot, you all know the drill, but no lunch rides make Gianni a dull boy.

Living on the edge consists of staying up till 10:30 to watch "apocalypto" on a work night- Big thumbs up from me and worth nodding off in the crane today, Miz C dug it and informed me that it has gotten good reviews yet been snubbed for the awards due to the Mel factor, I dunno about all that crap but it was a goodie and I reccommend it.

Went to another retirement this week, another baby boomer moves to Bend with his California pension and equity, and man there are some pretty spots of dirt to be had still...

Heading to Paskenta tommorrow, gonna hang on as long as possible in that slugfest, but most important will be the time with buds riding....