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...

Over Dewing It...

I was feeling a little saucy today so I decided to bite off a nice big 3.5 hour chunk of riding. It was pretty decent for the most part, but I think I did a bit more climbing than the knee was ready for. I need to just chill out and take my time getting some fitness, but that's easier said than done when my roommates are doing like 9 hour tempo rides and goin all fast all the time, and here I am riding 12 mph for 1 or 2 hours... overall thing are still going pretty well and I don't think I'm going to have to take any races off the sched.
So my epic jaunt took me out into the villes and burgs that surround Bloomington. Part of the ride took me into some uncharted territory. The residents of the uncharted territory didn't really like me parading around in my spandex in their burg, because I got 2 random flip off's and one of these bounced off my back:


Luckily it was empty and didn't weigh like 3 lbs, because then it may have hurt, this time it just kind of pissed me off. Once I saw that it was actually a Mountain Dew bottle I kind of had to laugh. The only way that could have been more cliche, would have been if it was a can of Budweiser with a Dave Earnhardt Intimidator coozie on it. That was the last redneck encounter of the day, I did however encounter the beast that is Boltinghouse Rd. Those of you Bloomington residents know all about this climb and all the tales that go with it. For those who don't know about it... it's something like 26% grade and there is no way to go up it easy. So I figured that I would go up that on my way back to town to see how pushing a hard gear would feel on the knee. It wasn't bad, but the 39-23 didn't exactly turn over very easily.


I will leave you will this YouTube clip that my DG girls found and passed my way. I think it's hilarious, hopefully you will too!


As long as fed ex doesn't screw it up, I should have some team bike pics to put up this weekend too.

later

Baby Steps

Progress Baby! Today I rode again, outside even, with a nice group of 10 or so. That makes 3 days in a row for those of you keeping track at home. I didn't go very hard or amazingly long, but it was monumental for me. This was the first day outside in 2 weeks, and without pain non the less. I've gotta keep being careful with the knee for at least another week, but as long as I don't do anything stupid, I should be able to start real training soon enough. The numbers were huge today... 2:33 minutes and 120 watts average. It's funny what has become good for me these days...







Also in other news, I recently committed to coaching the Delta Gamma women's little 5 team. They are pretty awesome and probably ride more than I do. I'm trying to get the hang of this whole coaching thing, but I think I've come up with some decent plans so far, but I'm not quite sure how do the whole motivational thing.

Props got out to my coach Jackson Stewart and the BMC boys for throwin' it down with the Boonen and the big names in Qatar. Hopefully they can get some good press for Amurica this week.

I can read good.

So I kinda rode my bike yesterday and today, not outside, but on the trainer. Yesterday I rode for 38 minutes and averaged 68 watts, and today I rode for a whopping 1 hour and decided to really lay down the power with an average of 104 watts. If I keep getting awesomer at putting down the power, I should be able to get up the hill out of my apartment complex by early next week...

Since I hadn't been doing much riding until the last few days, I have started to do a little reading.


I read "Positively False" and "From Lance to Landis." Positively False wasn't really very good, but it did raise some good questions about drug testing accuracy, but who knows. The whole book was so Landis-biased that it was hard to take much of it seriously. The other book was actually pretty rad. It had so many first hand accounts of doping in cycling and The Tour that it was hilarious. I'm not much of a doping crusader, but it was pretty cool to hear about some of the stuff that has gone on in the Postal/Disco team busses.

Speaking of doping, I've been thinking about doping my hair. I got another hair cut yesterday and I of course didn't get the back cut, but it still doesn't look like a real mullet. It's like a junior mullet. lame. Anyway, I'm going to keep trying to get the hours on the bike up and the pain in my knee down.

Later Bro-Brah's