Victory Ride -- 9/21/2004

Smaller group tonight. Might be the last week for this ride. It's getting darker and darker earlier and earlier. We are already cutting out a fair amount of the ride due to lack of light. Going up hill to Northbrook, we real attacks but just a killer pace up the hill then the pace really picked up on the flat. One by one, people dropped off the back, leaving me pretty pleased to be in an elite group of 4 consisting of myself, Dr. Smooth, Fergie, and Trey. But finally, I, too, dropped off. After the harder parts of the ride, we had a conversational roll back to town. I got to talk to Ferg about his PowerTap system. He seemed happy with the system, but I still don't see the real benefit, nor can I justify the cost.

Tonight on the ride we were coming down this hill around a bend a this car (should I say Klunker) is backing out of his driveway. A car is coming from the other way. He should have seen us or the other car or both. I was second in the line and start yelling "SLOWING, SLOWING, SLOWING" and then finally "STOPPING". This guy throws it into drive and takes off in the direction that we were heading with his big meaty hand shoved out the window flashing us the bird. Yeah, I guess it was our fault he pulled out in front of us.

Cross season is almost here, and I ain't got a bike. I tried Campo 28's on my old road bike -- I had to deflate them to a ridiculously low pressure to get them into the frame, and when re-inflated they rubbed my campy single pivots. My old Wheeler has a Mag 21 with an 1-1/4" Head tube which makes its use for CX racing doubtful and makes conversion relatively expensive. I mean by the time I convert the Wheeler (i.e. new headtube adapter, new headset, new rigid fork, new stem, maybe new drop bars, new front wheel), I'd be well on my way to a new frame onto which I could just transfer my Ultegra 600 stuff from the Ox. My dual-suspension Fuel 95 would be a bitch to shoulder. There's a part of me that wants to buy a new bike, but there's a part of me that likes keeping as much of the green as possible. Any htoughts or ideas?

Ride with GR

45 miles -- did surprisingly well considering the lactic acid still in my legs from yesterday's run.

Run!

Today, I went for a run. The first in a long, long time. After the softball incident I have been reluctant to do much off the bike outside of a brisk walk. With the remants of Ivan having just come through the roads were too messy and likely flooded for a good road ride, and with cross season right around the corner it seemed a good impetus to run. Ran about 30 minutes with a few hill repeats thrown in.

Lack of Updates

Not for lack of riding. I mean its not been as much as I'd like but I'm still getting out. I returned my HRM and am giving up on tracking mileage, time, etc. As a big a geek as I am and as much as I enjoy the data (even though I'm not employed I'm still an engineer), it was just taking some of the enjoyment out of just riding. Just for historical reference, I'm going to 'cheat' a bit and go back and fill in some of the missed rides.

Victory Ride -- 9/14/2004

This was the first time this year we had to cut the ride short due to loss of daylight. I seem to be fighting a bit of a cold and couldn't believe how much it hurt me in hanging with the lead group tonight. My hypochondric self started to think that perhaps I was getting lead poisoning from my home improvement project. I never lost contact but was the last over the hill at Lieds tonight. We'll see how things go next week. And, oh yeah, got to re-meet Fergie, a great rider and great guy from back in the early '90's when I was racing MTBs.

With GR -- 9/12/2004

Rode with GR. About 50 miles on a new route. It's always fun to try something new.

Supposed to Ride -- 9/11/2004

Couldn't get out of bed to meet GR at 6:15 as both the munchkins were awake essentially non-stop between 2 and 4 AM. Lake clean-up and other obligations prevented a later ride.

Victory Ride -- 9/7/2004

High tempo from the get-go. Hung with an elite group of 8 until just before 142 and 82. Then rode in no man's land by myself until two guys working together reeled me in. After a bit, one of the guys and I dropped the other. Regrouped with Dr. Smooth in D-Town and casually rolled back to WC together.

Politics Ride -- 9/6/2004

Things get interesting today as Dr. Smooth whose humor and wit remind me very much of John Weld of IR fame verbally hammers Scott's Republican views for essentially the entire 33 miles. So while the rhetoric was flying, we were not.