Ramblings

Psimet invitational time people. I am looking for boobie prize ideas....clean ones at least.

Converted my rig back to a road setup from the TT setup for the gourp ride last night. This time it included swapping cranks and chain as well. I am down to 1 hr for the swap. I told you...I'm Batman.

Trying to convert my Cyclocross bike from it's commuting configuration. If you're not familiar with the sport of Cyclocross let me explain it this way: It's when a bunch of cyclists decide that because it's winter they need to do something different...so they go for a run in the woods...but just can't leave their bikes at home. Seems we're not too bright when it comes to this whole running thing...

As mentioned I use the cross bike as my commuter normally. I have never raced it to date. I will be racing it shortly and figure I need to work out how to dismount and run with it, etc. That means pulling off the rack and fenders, etc....means that commutes will be very difficult at best. Considering the light is bad and my main commuting route looks like this....

I am not too worried about it not having my bike in commute mode...

2000

I really haven't been paying attention to mileage much this year. Just kind of riding. I haven't even been keeping an excel log like I normally do. I have actually even gone on rides where my computer wasn't working and just ridden (did it Tuesday for the group ride as a matter of fact).

Don't get me wrong, I'm an engineer at heart so data is what I live for, but I just have more passion in measuring the pain instead of the distance this year.

That being said I did notice tonight that my total mileage for the year crossed 2,000 today. Not a killer year yet, but it is slightly different than years past. First these are road only - no trainer. I usually don't get here until about August or September.

I usually start to lose my drive in July after RAIN and after watching the Tour so much. I kind of go into overload and find I am left with no goals until the following year. This year I have had some racing goals for late season to keep me going. I also haven't spent a ton of time watching the Tour. Really hitting the fast forward buttons on the DVR when I finally do check it out.

Speaking of the tour...I am a few stages behind (Cadel is still in yellow in my world), but a lot of the fun really has finally been stripped out of it. Last year you knew there were still dopers and it would be a mess, but this year I was hoping to see some good racing between some young guns that would actually develop into tomorrow's GC riders.

When I saw Ricco climbing the way he was....eerily reminiciant of the Chicken last year and Contrador...which...let's all face it...is probably one of the biggest dopers around...I just thought to myself, "doper." I haven't really said that about any rider for a while. Last time was when Landis won Paris-Nice after winning Georgia the year he went on to win the Tour and start the total tearing apart of the sport I loved. Thanks Landis. Kind of proud I called that one here in this thread (post 21 on 3/8/06).

As most of you know it turned out Ricco and Sunny D were doped to the gills.

...meh....

So here I am tired as heck after putting in 3 hard days of riding with little sleep. I hurt all over. Everything. Today one of my knuckles swelled up from the vibrations on the bars. I figure that's what arthritis feels like. I don't like it.

I am contemplating putting in 3 more commute legs this week still. Mainly just to do it. Then taper a little (after the group ride Tuesday) next week for the Elgin crit. I think I need a rest day.

Knobbies Suck.....kinda

So I finally got around to doing what I had intended on doing since I bought my cyclocross bike to use as a commuter...I put regular tires on it.

My intention was to keep the cross tires for possible cross races in the fall and put regular road tires on the bike for commuting. I have had a wonderfully new pair of Michelin ProRace 2s sitting around forever because at a 25mm size they were huge on a normal road bike and actually wouldn't clear any frames I put them on. They're like balloon tire huge.

A long spring, followed by lots of rain and then the eventual trail construction led to me just never getting around to switching out the knobbies. Well I finally did. This morning was the first time on the bike with "real" tires on it. Nice. It rides much better (in my opinion) and was noticibly faster. I felt so much better riding them.

The whole way in I kept thinking "I'm going to blog or post about this. I am so much faster with the regular tires on, it makes a HUGE difference. I mean I knew it made a difference, but come on...."

Then I got in and realized that I had the same time as just about any other time I have ridden in on that bike. Huh???!! Oh well. I guess I can chalk it up to the rain that decided to accompany me this morning.

Time will tell, but for now I am still glad I am off of knobbies.

Beautiful Day to Not Ride

Hrmpgh.

I got up at 5 to do the commute in to work. The Fox River Trail is what I use for the majority of the ride. The total commute is 50-ish miles round trip.

Well they decided to repave about 4 miles of the trail this year and decided to do so during the May 15-July 15 time period....right about the time gas prices started taking off.

The trail needs it. I just hate the fact that just about the entire affected area is along my commute. When I asked the Park Services about work arounds for the section they basically told me to go pound sand (in a nice way). They don't want to be liable for re-routing people on dangerous routes.

When I got up I found I was dragging a bit. I slowly put on my gear and was heading down to get breakfast when I realized I just didn't feel like playing I was Marco Polo this morning. Then it dawned on my that I could go change clothes, hang out with little psimet for a while, and then go to work and be early. Really early.

I chose the path of least resistance (get it?). Since I got to work everyone has come by saying 2 things: "Wow...you really are here this early." and "It's such a beautiful day. Why didn't you ride?"

Looks like I'll try to get home a little earlier to take lil psimet on a ride.

Hrmpgh.