No Pain, No Gain

My dad has always been the active, athletic type, and he has been riding off and on for probably 20 years or so. He hasn't been riding much the last few year with the new business and all, but he's starting to get back on a fitness kick. Sometimes his time constraints or the weather don't let him get outside to exercise, so he gets creative. He's normally pretty proud of his home-made workouts. For a while now his bike had a flat and he didn't have a tube, so he jumped rope... for 2 hours! Give me a break!

For those of you who have met my dad, that shouldn't surprise you. Those of you who aren't familiar with Dave, let me give you a little bit about him. He doesn't ride in his little ring, ever. He just got his first "kit" for christmas this year, previously he wore tank-tops for his cycling endeavors. When he rides outside, he rides the same 20 mile loop as hard as he can, to try to set a PR, no matter if he's ridden 50 times this year or 5 times. He doesn't believe in recovery rides. He is a generally hard core dude. He lives by the slogan "no pain, no gain." And he will for sure, never shave his legs!n So that's a little background on "The Dave."

He has been kicking around the idea of entering a 5's/Citizens race, but he says he doesn't want all those people riding so close to him. He says he just going to ride as hard as he can until he gets away from everyone. Typical. Even though he is pretty ridiculous, I guess it could be worse. At least he out there fighting to stay young. For real though, I think he's serious about racing this time, because he changed the wallpaper on his computer to a picture of Lance Armstrong... typical.

I just hope I'm half as hardcore as he is when I'm 50.

Kila-Hunnies

I did some bike practice this weekend and it was grand. On Saturday we ran into Brett Stewart out on the road and we recalled a situation that had come about a few weeks ago. Lets recap, I was getting ready to go ride and there was a crowd of hot chicks (obviously) waiting for me outside my apartment (seriously). As we were getting to roll, the boys came back from their ride and Brett was with them. We all talked for a bit and soon the talk turned to kilo-joules. Now this isn't the first time I've seen this happen, talking kilo-joules around kila-hunnies. I thought that everyone knew that this was a massive faux-pas, but I was obviously wrong. No girl cares what you 5 minute max is, or about your LT, there must be a separation, like church and state. Kilo-joules and Kila-hunnies must stay separate.


I don't know why I felt compelled to tell you guys about that, but whatever. So the boys went and hit up the Ohio State RR and had a pretty good day for the team. IU picked up the win in every race that they had a rider enter, not bad. I'm planning on lacin' up the racing shoes this weekend a couple times, hopefully I can get some fat pockets.


Alright, I've got some Lost on DVR that I've gotta go catch up on.

Killin' It

So I'm sitting here watching the ToCA live updates, and he's at it again!

KOM 1

1 Jackson Stewart (BMC Racing Team)
2 Danilo Wyss (BMC Racing Team)
3 Iker Camano Ortuzar (Saunier Duval-Scott)
4 Edward King (Bissell)

KOM 2

1 Jackson Stewart (BMC Racing Team)
2 Danilo Wyss (BMC Racing Team)
3 George Hincapie (High Road)
4 Iker Camano Ortuzar (Saunier Duval-Scott)

KOM 3

1 Jackson Stewart (BMC Racing Team)
2 Edward King (Bissell)
3 Jonathan Hivert (Credit Agricole)
4 Iker Camano Ortuzar (Saunier Duval-Scott)

That's all the KOM's, max points for the day! I bet I'd go up hill pretty fast too if it meant I got to kick it with those Dime Piece Rock Racing podium girls.

Right now the white stuff is coming down pretty hard outside, and we're under a winter storm warning for the next 24hrs or so. It doesn't look good for getting outside anytime soon. Now I know how all those Wisco boys feel all off-season. I feel like i'm getting pretty hardcore though, either that or my brain is fried from exessive Benny Benassi... doubtful.

EDIT:
From Cyclingnews
15:45 PST
We're only seeing seven riders in the break so we'll try to figure out who we're missing. Jackson Stewart has pulled up and abandoned the race! He would have been most aggressive rider most likely.

I spoke too soon....

Rough Life...

Well he gets to keep the jersey for another day. Maybe this time Phil Liggett won't call him "Stewart Jackson"... I think Phil is drunk half the time he calls a race.

In other news my SRM is on its way back to me. Their customer service is awesome, it went to Colorado and back, and got fixed in 9 days... not too shabby in my book.

TTYL BFF's

Go Jackson Go!

If you didn't see it, my coach Jackson Stewart spent 115 K or so off the front solo in stage 1 of the Tour of Cali yesterday... pretty sick work. He picked up all the intermediate sprint points and all the KOM points, so he's winning the Points classification and wearing the KOM jersey. That's some pretty solid face time. Hopefully he didn't kill himself too much and can ride a decent rest of the race. Mad props J Stew!

Been A While...

So not too much has been going on, so I haven't had much to update you guys on. Anyway, like I said in my last update, we've had some tough weather so I've been inside a lot, but luckily we got some new dvd's around the place to help pass the time. We got a double disk of Paris-Roubaix from 07, Transitions 1 and 2, as well as "Pro". They are all pretty awesome and have served
their purpose well.


The weather got better for the weekend and I got out to do some good hours with a little bit intensity thrown in. We did a new ride called Devil's Backbone. Devil's Backbone is this route south of town with some good climbing and you end up on some massive ridge with rivers on both sides of you and like 100 feet straight down on each side of the road, pretty cool scenery though.




For the first time this season I felt like I had a good day on the bike. I could actually push the gears instead of the gear pushing me. My first race is still a few weeks off, but some of the boys actually went down to KY and did a little racing this weekend. We put a couple guys in the top ten and Isaac even picked up the win for the team. Not a bad start to the 08 season though.

If you for some reason stumble onto this lame update, I'm sorry. Hopefully the material will be getting better here in the next few weeks.

SRM's are so 07

The weather around here has been pretty terrible for the last few days, so I've been doing the workouts on the trainer. It really sucks, but with racing just around the corner, I'm in no position to be skipping workouts. Time goes a little faster if you surf the interweb while doing intervals... try it.

Nashville 90

We set out to do some hours on the new bikes today, and with John Meyers in town, we didn't really follow typical Bloomington protocol for intensity. Now I don't really have a problem with turning the screws a little bit, but normally we take our longer rides pretty chill in the colder months down here. John and I led the group of 12 out of town at a pretty good clip, and it didn't really let up for the next 3 hours or so. John claims he's out of shape, but if he is as out of shape as he says he is, I pity the midwest racing scene, because he was putting in some pretty solid turns on the front. After one of his pulls, one of the guys on the ride said "John Meyers is an axe murderer." True statement. About 3 hours in, the higher than usual intensity (for me) and bigger volume than I've really done this year was pushing the limits of my knee's health. I had to back it down because I didn't want to risk a set back. It was pretty awesome to get some good speed rockin' for once, and I think this was a step forward in the quest for fitness. The last couple of hours coming in were pretty brutal too, the wind was relentless and the two pancakes I had for breakfast were long gone. I bonked pretty freaking hard. Oh well, sweet ride none the less. I would have taken some pictures of the group, but the only thing I was reaching into my pockets for today were bars and Gu's.
Side Note- The new bikes ride awesome, surprisingly good considering they are straight out of the box. Alright dudes, time for some recovery brews...

The Day I Turned Off Techno

So Tuesday I had lots of free time and decided to make the 6+ hour round trip up to Trailhouse in Northern Indiana and pick up our new team bikes. I stopped by my parents house to borrow one of their cars so I could fit the 6 bikes, 6 shoe boxes, and 6 helmet boxes. The best part about the car I borrowed wasn't the fact that it has enough room to fit all this stuff, it's the fact that it has satellite radio. Those of you who know satellite radio may be familiar with a little thing called "Area 33." For those of you on the outside, Area 33 is the all Techno/ Dance station on Sirius. I was super excited to get this bikes so I took off for the solo drive full of zest and excitement. I had a 1 person rave pretty much the whole up and about half way back, then tragedy struck. With about an hour left in the trip... I cracked. My brain was fried, my arms were tired, and I could no longer bob my head. I turned off the techno. I was disappointed in myself for not taking full advantage of my unlimited access to streaming club tunes. Everyone has had those days when you don't bring your "A" game, for me that day was Tuesday. I can only hope that the next time I get the chance to tackle 6+ hours of techno I'll be ready.





The finished product

A Case of the Mondays

I had a minor case of the Monday's today. The weekend weather was pretty awesome and the riding was equally rad, so when the dreaded alarm sounded today I wasn't feelin' it. I'll survive I guess, but this whole riding a lot thing has become so novel to me. This weekend we got some good kilo's in the legs in some almost 50 degree weather. The knee is getting better everyday, and I should be able to do some intensity pretty soon. I broke the 4-digit wattage barrier this weekend in a sign sprint... aren't you impressed? My first race is 4 weeks away and I'm behind schedule like whoa. Whatev, it will work itself out. Today I got a little spin in with Brett Stewart, he was equally willing to go slow, so it worked out well. I took the camera with me on the rides and got a picture or two.

Crossing a Pedestrian Bridge


Scenery


Isaac modeling the new IU Kit


Those glasses make me look exceptionally lame


Me and B Stewart


OK enough of the photos, I'm about to go get a super girlie coffee-esqe drink at The Copper Cup. What of it?

Cross Promotion

While surfing the world of Blogdom, I found some pretty good stuff on some other blogs out there. I've got these guys linked from my site, but I wanted to make sure you guys didn't miss it, so I'm gonna put it here too.

Molly Cameron and Greg @ Mud and Cowbells both have this video up on their sites. It's a video Chance Noble made of Cross Worlds, with an epic soundtrack. I couldn't risk you guys missing it, so here it is.



I love the Slow-Mo shot in the middle.

And....

Greg has these pics linked from his blog of the Hasselt Indoor Cross race. It's kind of like the Criteriums that follow the Tour, where the winner is predetermined, but it's just a chance for everyone to show off their new WC kits and other stuff.

Hasselt Indoor Cross

Later Brobi Wan Kenobi's

Bro, Your're a God Amongst Bro's

Link courtesy of Chris Chartier

i'm so jacked up off coffee right now...