Thursday, February 19, 2009

Eurokooks

This just in:

UCI bans wheels deeper than 30mm.
UCI bans the use of clinchers in racing.
UCI bans interval training.

Well, no, not quite, but I bet that's next. Or some other crazy stuff - I swear the UCI wants everyone on round tube steel frames. Dictating regulations, they can put a manufacturer out of business with a stroke of a pen. Since they are a for profit institution, what would that suggest? Insanity. Those crotchety old kooks have got to get over their nostalgia and get with the century.

So if you race NRC races, or anything else that requires a USA Cycling license, have fun trying to dump worthless equipment on ebay and purchasing new stuff that fits the bill. I hear the great Trek bicycle corporation is actually unaero enough to be legal - funny.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

No Pie

No racey-racey. Too much workey-workey, not enough ridey-ridey and no need to spend money.

Three days off the bike this week (Monday, Thursday, Friday) had me feeling all sorts of crappy and crabby. I did 15 1/2hrs in the other 4 days, so I pretty much alternated between grumpy and tired. At least it kept the fitness from falling off a cliff, like it could have.

The main reason for the funky schedule was that my class took a field trip to Seattle immediately after two days of midterms, where we drove around to various appointments in 12 passenger vans and paraded our suits in front of some executives, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, and whomever else would pay attention. We heard some interesting commentary from the collected wisdom of Seattle businesses, including:

1) if you think you are worth X, you should now consider yourself worth X/2.
2) venture capital is fun but don't even think about it.
3) if you want a job when you graduate, go into health care or start your own business.
4) if you want to still have a job 12 months later, go into health care.
5) you are really lucky not to be graduating right now.