Time out

Couple of things lately have made me realize that I'm off my game, at a time when I really need to be on. I need to focus a bit more, so it may be a while until I update. Until then ... I'm on a break!

Upon further review

Every person who beat me on Saturday was better prepared than me. Better prepared physically, mentally, experientially. I consider trail knowledge to be a valuable piece of a racer's preparation, and go to great lengths to exploit that in my own racing. There is nothing wrong with identifying that a person has an advantage because he or she is on familiar ground. To me, it's the same as saying that a person has an advantage because of their physical capacities (as Goat identified with Ron) or mental strength.

I understand that my comment about Crystal Ridge may be understood to mean that Ron, James or Matt beat me solely because of circumstance -- just because of the fact that they live closer to the course than I do, and may or may not have raced there each week. That was not the intent of what I said, and if you believe I hold my fellow racers in such regard, then you do not know me very well. Every advantage they had on Saturday, they earned, through practice, hard work, and sacrifice.

Now I'm really done.

Addendum

One other thing -- if my comments about trail familiarity belittled Ron or James, or the other racers out there in any way -- guys, I'm sorry. Not what I intended. Good ride, great job, and I'll see you on the next start line.

OK, I'm done.

Misconstrued

My apologies to Matt Gissibl if it seemed as though my race report was demeaning to his effort on Saturday. Matt beat me, fair and square, to round out the podium, and if my question whether he was a CR regular seemed as though that belittled his effort, I'm sorry. It was meant more as a comment on my inability to ride well there -- CR is fun, but I feel like I haven't quite "gotten" it yet -- I need multiple exposures over time to really get a feel for any trails I ride. For the record, a search of the race results from the Wednesday night time trials at Crystal Ridge for the past three years does not reveal Matt's name.

Bigsexyflashyhot

Just a tease, no photos yet ... Brad's new ride is HOT. I think I made a comment when I got my 'cross bike a while back -- you have to be fast if you're riding a white bike. If that's the case, he's gonna' be screaming.

Big smile

It was hard to wipe the HUGE smile off my face yesterday -- three-plus hours at Palos, my first time out there on the Siren, my first time out there this season, my "first" time on now-legal trails. Un-f-ing believable. It was so awesome!

Overall a great weekend -- slept in until 4:30 or so on Saturday, ate breakfast and went back to bed ... lazy morning re-Stansing and cleaning up before heading to Crystal Ridge for a late (3 p.m.) start. Quick warmup, line up halfway down the hill, countdown, go ... second to the bikes, third on the trail, lost time to Ron and James as soon as we hit the singletrack. Let's see ... third ride at Crystal Ridge vs. Ron-"I can do these trails in my sleep"-sta. Yeah.

Kept James in sight until the third lap, Matt from Hayes caught and passed me (another CR regular?), and I started cramping bad on lap 4. Goal was a solid 3 hour performance with six laps; never in doubt, and managed to pull it together on lap 6 for a decent finish in 4th. I lost about 2min per lap to Ron and 1 per lap to James -- just the sort of day it was. My riding wasn't podium-worthy, I was pretty tight, but it was good to get back out in a race situation again and I had fun. Isn't that all that matters?

Bed late, didn't sleep well -- good thing, as our 5 a.m. alarm was set for 5 p.m. Breakfast, quick gather, DD run and on to Palos ... solo but ran into a bunch of folks, and absolutely loved every minute of it. The Song is perfect out there -- I was riding stuff so fast I lost track of where I was a couple of times. So much fun. It was a bit crowded, so I headed off the island for a bit before finishing up with a loop of last year's race course. Stopped in at work to clean the bike, all is ready for the Blue Ridge this weekend. Finished out the day with a bit of laundry and a bit of cleaning followed by some Closing Ceremony action ... my new pillow couldn't have felt better ...

A new life begins ...

CONGRATS to Ben and Julie!!!

Bones to pick

• You may have noticed my tendancy to label fellow bicyclists according to their ride preference. I wasn't sure where it came from -- but now I have a hint. I've been a loyal subscriber to Road Bike Rider.com's e-mail newsletter since just about the beginning; Ed and Fred liberally use the term "Roadies" to make their readership feel included. The inference is that everyone else is, well, not a "Roadie." Then came this in the current newsletter, in their article by mechanic guru "Uncle Al:" "Once upon a time I was the support mechanic for a 2-day mountain bike event with 60 riders. Maybe you think I should be burned at the stake for an indiscretion like that ..."
  
  When I read that, it hit me: my tendancy to classify my fellow cyclists is thanks in part to the elitist attitude expressed by Uncle Al and his ilk. It's just sad when you knock on mountain bikers and their events in a lame attempt to appeal to your readership. But that seems to be the way of it ... unsubscribe me, please.
• Not sure about you, but my commutes have sucked this week. The rides themselves have been fine, but there's something in the air -- I've been yelled at, at least once each day this week. And honked at three or four times -- mind you, most of my ride is on the Path. Thankfully (knock wood), no close calls and no crashes like last week, but people are on edge, and it's getting weird out there.
• And then I saw this article in the Trib: "City to step up enforcement of bike laws." The story itself is actually fairly balanced, but it still feeds the machine that produces the donut-loving, Nissan driving man and his wife who yelled at me on Clark Street on Tuesday. The accompanying poll and quiz are pretty lame, and the photo caption as the lead story yesterday afternoon was just sad.
• Even worse was the Bicycle Ambassadors on the path on Monday, standing in one of the most dangerous, highly trafficked corners on the Path. Find a better place to pull people over, PLEASE!

OK, I just needed to get those things off my chest. Whew.

For Julie

The next few days are going to be crazy, so all three of us wanted to say CONGRATULATIONS to you and Ben!

Heyyyyyyyyyyy

So The Fonz made it on WGN news this morning. So did Joanie -- stifling a huge yawn during the Brewers game. I really wanted to see Potsie racing the giant sausage, but no dice.

I realized today that I leave for Interbike in 33 days. Holy crap. My to-do list for the next month is stacked, with a "critical path" (see, I did learn something from my previous jobs!) that is just friggin' scary. The if-then scenarios aren't enough to keep me up at night, but that's only because I'm training again and flogging myself on the bike always makes me sleepy.

I'm up to my eyeballs in the Show, but thankfully steal a few minutes here and there for fun stuff too. The last couple of days have been focused on wheels -- a full bearing replacement on the WTB hub (which had, incidentally, a dented rim -- that's right, TWO of them from Ho Chi Minh), and a re-lace/new rim on the DT ceramic. I'm super-psyched -- now both my primary and secondary rear wheels are "pro"-level quality. Sweet. Full disclosure -- Craig did the bearing replacement ... he's the original bike geek, and decided that, heck, as long as it was apart, he'd clean out and re-grease the pawls in the hub body too. This after spending 10 minutes playing with the engagement mechanism using a small pick. (you have to know Craig)

I've heard from a couple of people that they're bummed I'm not 'crossing it up this year -- I appreciate hearing that, thank you. Unfortunately, the mental energy I would need to put into it just isn't there until after Moab, and come November I have a few other things to take care of pretty quickly. So the two races I could do would just be shoehorned in, and it just isn't worth it at this point.

(Besides the two-day Lamaze class in mid-November [the alternative to the 8-week class we're skipping], I have a ton of housework that I need to do -- I never finished up last March, and I owe Kim a couple of days of heavy-duty spackling before the baby comes. I admit that last "off-season" ended too quickly, and now is the time to make up for it!)

In the meantime, training is going well, and I'm super-excited about the numbers I'm seeing for these first couple of workouts. I'm not as lean as I need to be yet, but that will come (no riding during Interbike + sushi = danger zone), and more importantly I'm motivated with a capital "M" -- not sure where it's coming from, but I'll ride the wave while I can!