After the last few weeks my jerseys are beginning to resemble pin cushions.
9 races in 15 days (Tour of the Valley + Westlake + Superweek) weakens your immune system, allowing you to catch the dreaded summer cold and waste the race fitness you just built.
A VW Passat wagon can fit a bike, 4 wheels, work [...]
Entries from July 2009
July 28, 2009
Not-so-deep post-Superweek thoughts
July 27, 2009
Not the same old …
When you find yourself staring at the same jerseys, same bikes, same wheels week after week it can get a little boring. It’s often the same guys in the breakaways, same guys sprinting at the end.
One of the reasons I like going to Superweek is to race against different guys. And not just [...]
July 25, 2009
Acting your age
There’s a little bit of the Tour de France at Superweek. And not just racing every day.
The racers at the Tour de France occasionally find reasons to stage protests: over unsafe road conditions, treatment by police during the doping scandals several years ago. To protest, they will sit at the start line when [...]
July 21, 2009
The worst drivers live in …
My money would be “Illinois” based on yet another experience driving up to Superweek.
Even on the Ohio and Indiana turnpikes, when someone would pass on the right at 85+ mph, or suddenly speed up as I was passing, I would look at the license plate: Illinois.
Driving through the construction zones outside of Chicago, where the [...]
July 17, 2009
Prep (?) for Superweek
Another race, another taper. Well, sort of.
Superweek starts (for me) on Monday. Last year I said this:
>> Next year, I drive back either late at night or early morning.
That was in reference to the insane Friday afternoon traffic from the Wisconsin border through Chicago and all the way to Gary, IN. So what do [...]
July 15, 2009
I’m starting to dislike the Tour de France
And LANCE.
One guy at work just calls me “LANCE” now. Every time he sees me.
The other day five different people asked me if I’m following “The Tour” and if I think LANCE will win.
Three times in the last 2 weeks people have asked why I’m not riding in it. (There’s that small matter of [...]
July 14, 2009
Quitting is an option
I know triathletes who would sooner collapse than quit in a race. One guy broke his collarbone (he didn’t know at the time) when he crashed 15 miles into the 112-mile bike leg of a race. He still finished on the bike. Then ran the marathon. It took him something like 17 hours and a [...]
July 7, 2009
Shrinking the sprawl
One of the ironic aspects of bike racing is that you spend a lot of time in the car.
When carpooling to races with my teammate Tris, we invariably end up talking about how we don’t like driving, and how we’d like to be able to walk and/or ride to more places. The urban sprawl that [...]
July 2, 2009
Baskets of regret
When they published the schedule for this year’s USA Cycling Masters Nationals, I felt the heads of hundreds of masters racers shake in unison. Why would anyone schedule the road race (for the biggest fields) the day before the time trial? The answer that came back was: we’re trying to minimize people’s travel expenses.
Guys [...]
