Coiffure Superbe

BRING THE LEGS.

Piece of Shite

Got up at 530 this morning and hit the road at 615 to go race the Piece of Cake up in Woodland. Flat. 68 miles.

It was pretty windy up there, as always, and CMG pretty much just shut down anything that moved off the front. My longest break was probably 10 minutes, with Paulie and Hibbard after my original break companion missed a turn and rode off down a road somewhere after I made the correct right. Stupid corner marshalls. Then, about 3/4 of the way through the 3rd of 4 laps, some dude in the middle of the pack crossed the centerline and smacked into a mini-van. Carnage everywhere. His front wheel and fork launched probably 12 feet in the air and sailed above the pack to land in the right ditch. His bike went straight up, and landed in the left ditch. Dude was on the shoulder of the left lane. Bike parts everywhere. It took down several other guys, but only one ran head on into the car. Of course, being the nice assholes that they are, about a third of the field just drilled it. The whole race was eventually neutralized, we rode 6 miles to the start/finish, waited for the cat 3's to finish their race, then re-started for the remaining 17 miles.

Sweet.

After re-starting, CMG resumed chasing down anything that moved yet not putting their guys in line for a sprint. About 8k to go and we are riding fast, finally not all bunched up so I am moving up jumping wheels and figuring that I'll at least try to get into the top 20 or so (if you haven't raced it, there is a 90deg left hand turn with about 400m to go) before the sprint 'cause it's getting ugly. At 4k I'm sitting maybe 25th-30th and still trying to move up, jumping wheels no trouble, this is exactly my kind of tempo, then suddenly the whole Rubicon team is on the left side of the road and riding hard, along with who knows how many confused Turds. Rosenberg is gesturing and yelling, half the pack is screaming at them, they're screaming back, it's all hunky-dory then there's a big bang! from about two or three riders up and then two guys (one CMG, one Therapeutic) are headed backwards towards me, somewhat hooked together, Therapeutic with his rear derailer dangling from his chain where apparently the CMG guy ran into his rear wheel. Sweet. Everybody hits the brakes, I'm just about fishtailing trying to not hit these guys who went from 30 to 0 in a heartbeat, and I lost 30 places like effing that.

Race over.

Then Rosenberg protested to the officials, and Matt Ritzow went and had some hard words with the CMG guys, since apparently Hosmer grabbed his crotch and to push him out of the front line, or something. Donal Reed used the word 'fuck' a lot... delete my thoughts there. No need to get heated.

Absolut Bullshit.

Obama in hippie town

Obama is speaking at Macarthur court tonight. At 530 KLCC was saying that the line outside was a several thousand people - the doors open at 7, speech is at 9. This is a liberal town, but even Hillary couldn't get close to those numbers, and McCain couldn't get several thousand hicks to turn out in Springfield even if they were handing out free 40's of Schlitz and cases of Remington .22 ammo.
There's a growing feeling of inevitability about this election, but without the usual associated fear and loathing. It's kind of pleasant.

The CSC ride goes out to Drain tomorrow, 95 miles. It's definitely the day to do it, as it's supposed to be clear skies all day, and Sunday brings more rain. How long I actually stay out will depend on how much food I can cram into my pockets as I rush out the door in the morning, and whether I forget my water bottles.

closer to the end

of the fixed gear hipster craze. this wave has peaked. the new grunge generation is going to be pulling a kurt cobain in the next 12 months, i swear.

they've gone glossy. get yours at www.cogmag.com, $30 for 4 issues a year.


(yeah i know this shit is like 4 months old but i don't hang around the SF j.c.penny's sales to find out about this shit, so piss off)

and yes, that guy really has the balls to wear a rainbow jersey, and it reads "king of fucking street". and he calls himself "sino" 'cause, you know, that means japanese, and it's all ironic and shit, 'cause he is.

wow.

Training again

I've been skipping the weekend group rides lately in favor of some morning time with the lady, even talking her into sharing a couple hours on the bike. Yesterday I opted for the fixed gear, given the rough looking sky, and did a leasurely hour - forty five before heading off on my own for some more intensity. I headed off to do an over and back on Fox Hollow and when I turned onto Amazon I looked up to see the hill completely obscured by it's own private cloud.
Up one side and down the other all the way to the base, turn around and up to the top again. No rain, just clouds. About halfway down towards town, there's a little rise that kicks you out of the trees where on a clear day you can see the Sisters, exposed, briefly, before disappearing again. Spinning like mad I hit the climb and stood up, and suddenly was staring down at something I hadn't seen all day: my shadow. This tiny stretch of road was completely illuminated. Directly ahead was a sky so black that the clouds had no shapes. For a few seconds, I was pedaling, but not moving. Then, right at the top, my shadow disappeared like a switch had been thrown, and I plunged downward into the rain.

Thursday night's all right for... rain?

Thanks to the Prez, we now have just 8 months of the year not on the daylight saving time shift, so this past weekend we set all the clocks forward one hour to shift our habits and pretend like the sun goes down later than it does. Which means, the Thursday Nighter is now officially on.

I honestly don't even know who all showed up. It didn't really matter. It was windy and raining. There was a group. 10 minutes later, at the top of Welders, the three of us Smokers punched it at there were just 6. Somewhere on Territorial, we pulled some punches and there were 4. Then after holding a short lesson in how to ride your bike, we held another lesson in how not to sprint. D'oh! My co-worker (and unfortunately not teammate) Joel, who actually does know how to sprint, put on a clinic.

So it goes.

Watching stragglers roll in one at a time several minutes later was still fun.

Next week...

A month?

Really? A month has gone by? Crap. Let's see:

- rode another 1420km/887mi
- shocked myself and did a 45 kmph / 28.0mph TT in my first 'race' of 2008
- failed to sign up for or care about 3 road races
- bottled 5 gallons of beer
- didn't gain or lose a pound
- got food poisoning, once
- no flat tires.

Went OK...