Paris Roubaix

Quick update on the training. I've finally recovered from the move, and finally settling down. Conveniently, this week is a rest week... so lots of zone 1 recovery for me. I heard on the radio this morning that the National Weather Service is now predicting this to be a colder and uglier weather than the warmer winter they initially predicted. Go figure... Oh well, so with morning temperatures in the low 20's... no amount of motivation is getting me out on the road. Besides, trainers are good for something... a good stability workout since you don't have wind resistance helping to hold you up. At least I've been doing a pretty good amount of core work, so it's not too much of a shock to the system. Last night I was able to get my hands on a Tivo'd copy of Paris Roubaix. I'd love to ride that race one day (notice I said ride and not race!). That kind of race is right up my alley. The final sprint was pretty exciting after not seeing it since April. Tom Boonen is the man... and what a fantastic year he had at that! Flanders, Roubaix, a stint in the Green Jersey, and the World Championships in Madrid (not to mention many other wins)... and he's only 24. Anyways... I spun away on the trainer in zone 1 at a comfortable cadence of 100-105... it definitely seemed more difficult than riding zone 1 on the road. Tonight I may ride rollers instead.

Wow... what a week... whirlwind runabout

Okay... I've been neglecting the blog of late. The past week has been pretty crazy. Over the weekend we finally moved into our house. The house is cozy, and the lot is expansive with a deep wooded lot... hopefully the cats will really appreciate it. We spent the night on the aerobed Friday night in a house empty except for a few of our boxes, we decided to take the cats with us. Target and Walker didn't really appreciate the change... with none of their usual hiding places or furniture, they more or less freaked out. Up all night meowing, balling, and howling... Target the electronically gifted cat somehow recorded himself meowing for 30 seconds on our answering machine. If you can imagine a 30 second string of "MeOwwww... MeOwwww.." to the effect of "HELP... HELPPP...", you would imagine a sleepless night. My plan for the morning of the move was to sneak in a couple zone 2 hours on the bike. I awoke from my 2 hour slumber far from refreshed and quite zombified. We picked up the ubiquitous U-Haul truck and awaited the arrival of my parents and cousin. My Dad utilized his Ph.D. and lowered 95% of all the boxes over the railing. Our apartment steps are REALLY steep, I impressed my cousin Ryan into manual labor; the two of us fanagaling all of the really heavy and big stuff down the steep and narrow stairway. By the end of the day, we got everything moved, had an enjoyable dinner at the local Schezuhaun restaurant and called in a night.

Saturday night, our first official night at the house, I slept like a rock. It was great.

Sunday, I ordered Peanut Butter pancakes on a whim at the local Pancake House. Pretty good... but make sure you have plenty of water on hand. Basically, they were a stank of 6 big pancakes with a hearty helping of Peanut Butter smothering each layer. Quite filling... I skipped lunch. After Ryan left, we visited the boys(Target & Walker) at Katie's parents' house, then got our Christmas Tree. I've never had a real tree before... I'm glad my allergies aren't what the used to be. The scent is powerful, but full of holiday spirit. Katie did a great job decking the tree with lights and ornaments. After getting the tree up, I took off on a late afternoon--->twilight bike ride. It was pretty chilly and very windy; and I was tired, very tired. The proposed 3 hour zone 2 steady turned into a meandering 3 hour zone 1, with teases of zone 2 during the second half. It flurried here and there... which was nice. Oh, and it was my first time riding an old purple LeMond steel frame I built up for Katie's Dad... only now decked out with full fenders! Gotta love the ride of steel... and the clanging of fender supports when you lose a bolt mid ride (thank goodness for the ipod). Anyways, to avoid being long-winded, a highlight was having to walk a iced over climb. Good times.

Sunday night... slept like a rock again.

Monday... I really don't remember Monday very well, I was a zombie.

Tuesday. See Monday, although the Boys finally came home, and were much more at ease this time.

As for training, this has been a waste of a week for me. My body feels wasted and exhausted, so I've been focusing on trying to rest. The weather is still 10 degrees below average for this time of year, and we're expecting another winter snow/ice/freezing rain blast tonight into tomorrow. I really wish riding the trainer didn't require more motivation than I have right now; but as soon as I'm rested again, I look to get back on track. Finally... here's a picture from the Mill Mountain Time Trial (thanks to www.buffalo2step.com).

Trying to Stay Healthy & More Gift Ideas

After just a few days of base training in the elements, crud has decided to take up residence in my lungs. My solution? Back off just a bit, increase the vitamin uptake, use my bronchial inhalers, and some decongestant to knock it out. I hope to be back outdoors and on two wheels tomorrow morning! So far lately the weather has been COLD... add on top of that a windchill... just have to stay motivated. In other news, we've been able to revise my training program a bit. My intial first planned peak was a bit early, with news of the rescheduling of the Casey Auto Crit, I can now fit three solid base periods in. Watch out.

As for more gifts ideas, here are a few more options:

Oakley Zero sunglasses - First seen in the 2004 Tour, I decided that I needed to check them out. Excellent for timetrialing, as they have no rims to block your field of vision. I like usuing them for all sorts of riding/racing though. They have excellent peripherial vision, the usual Oakley optics, and SUPERLIGHT & COMFORTABLE. Want to be more svetle, go for the Zero S's. I like them better than my tried and true M Frames.

Cycleops Power Tap SL - Power to the people! This handy device is a training cyclists' best tool. Measure, power, speed, cadence, heartrate, and kilojoules... then download the ride to your computer to dissect your ride. Takes training to the next level. The upgrades over the Power Tap Pro are enough to warrant the higher price. Gone are the drive side loose bearing, in their place are high quality cartridge bearings. Aside from being lighter weight, the unit is much more water/weather resistant. I have my laced to a Mavic Open Pro rim. Other great options include the new DT Swiss rims, or the Bontrager Race X Lite Aero. Of course you can also have Zipp or Nimble build you a sweet set of Carbon race wheels with one of these babies too (Serious $$$$$).

LeMond Fillmore - Get 'em a nice fixed gear that feels like a road bike. The Fillmore features tradition LeMond road geometry couple with horizontal dropouts, plus front and rear brakes. Hardcore fixed gear riders may turn their noses at rear brakes, but I'm not ashamed of mine (especially hitting 45+ mph on Sugarloaf Mountain). The stock gearing my be a bit tall; I've got mine set up with a 39x16 (~64"). Also of note, the Bontrager Select track wheels feature cartridge bearings and the new Bontrager outboard bearing cranks. I've even gone so far to set up my extra Power Tap wiring harness so I can download and keep track of my fixie training rides.

Craft Thermal Bike Jacket - Nice, warm, and red. I've used in below freezing and in the low 40's. Couple this with the Craft baselayers in the stocking, and your cyclist will have an exceptionally comfortable time training in the cold. I run mine with a Craft baselayer and a jersey underneath. A big bonus are the four rear pockets (one zippered), combined with my jersey gives me plenty of storage space for long rides.

More to come later!

Christmas Ideas for the Cyclist

I've been thinking about compliling a list of suggested gifts for cyclists. Not for me though, these are all products that I use and bestow the official "Frank the Tank Seal of Approval" to. The "FTSA" was an idea intially kicked around in the summer/fall of '04 as an inside joke of sorts to the BikeBeat webmaster Chris N. Nevertheless, I have once again dusted off the idea and officially making it a real thing. For my initial list, here are some Stocking Stuffers: (only requirement being that they fit in a stocking)

Craft Pro Longsleeve baselayer - This lightweight wonder is great in cold temperatures. For instance, I used this with great success on this past Saturday's epic "I got sleeted on ride". The Pro baselayer, a Nike Dri-fit jersey, and a Craft Thermal bike jacket kept my upper body cozy and comfortable for the duration of the ride (except after stopping and starting for a snack break, but that doesn't count). For REALLY cold days, the Craft Active Wool baselayer should be considered.

Ziploc "Snack Size" bags - Simply put, just the right size for a handful of fig newtons, or a cell phone/ID/money clip. If you choose these as a stocking stuffer... at least put something in a couple bags of some value (be it nutrional, monetary, or intrinsic).

Craft Tempest Gloves - Another shameless plug for Craft. For the previous 10 years, I'd been relying on some well-worn Pearl Izumi Pittard thermal gloves. My PI's unfortunately reached a tragic fate as I saw them blow off the top of my car at 50mph. Life goes on... recently I discoverd the Tempest gloves; I like them a lot. They fit a hair loose, leaving room for liners on the really cold days, and feature windblock material on the back of the hand for added cool-weather coolness.

Trek Disco Tech Tail Light - An affordable tailight with loads of visibility. This thing is getting A LOT of use this time of year.

Bontrager Gel Cork Tape - I'm using this on my road bikes and mountain bike. This stuff is great! Wraps easily, comes with plenty of length for making it nice n' cushy. Plus it's tacky not adhesive backed like other tape. Properly wrapped I've had no unravelling problems.

That's all for now... I'll update the other categories soon enough, and may tack a few extra stuffers on this list. The Craft items can be ordered through ~99.9% of U.S. bicycle retailers. The Trek and Bontrager items are available EXCLUSIVELY at your local Trek dealer. Tis the season to tip your mechanic!

What a Buzzkill/Bi-polar weather

I lost both of the Bontrager Buzzkills in my handlebar today. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw something orange zip by; it didn't faze me. If you haven't tried them, try them out... they're pretty cheap, and may only have a placebo effect... but so what? I'm not a weight weenie anyways. This weekend's ride schedule featured a couple 2.5 hour rides. For some reason, I rode the same route two days in a row. However, they were like two completely different rides. Saturday was chilly, and there was rain in the forecast Saturday night. I got started shortly before 3pm with the temperature in the upper 30's. No biggie. As I trudged up the very long false flat climb up Bradshaw road, the temperature dropped, and the precipitation began. Sleet, very tiny sleet... just in time for a loooong gradual downhil at 30+mph (gotta keep the watts and HR in the right zone!). Needless to say, I was relieved to have been wearing my clear glasses at the time. As I reached the midway point of the ride, the sleet was at its heaviest, as I turned back towards town on US460, the temperature began to rise a bit; as a result, I was looking at mixed precipitation. Remarkably I was able to stay quite warm Saturday, with the exception of my uncovered ears. I enjoyed the ride, and returned home happy
Sunday's ride was very different, instead of the 30's, the temperature hovered in the 50's. Quite a change, also, Bradshaw Rd. had a pretty nasty headwind the ENTIRE way (which isn't that unusual). As I mentioned earlier, I lost my Buzzkills; next time I'll try setting them in with hairspray. It was strange only needing kneewarmers, armwarmers, and a vest (I used a Craft S-3 Baselayer with windblock in place of the vest), as it has been pretty cold here the past few weeks, and almost all of my riding of late has been either early in the morning or late at night. As I neared town, my legs began to ache... something I'm not really used to, but a result of my first week of base coupled with weight work. So far I remain motivated and very optimistic. That's all for now, more later if I have time.

new wool hat

I got a new wool hat last night. Picked it up at Eddie Bauer, or as Bryan calls it, "Eddie Bover". Don't ask me why. The hat is pretty cool-or warm actually, it's wool, and grey. I've been wearing it much of the day; although not because of its newness, but rather to keep my head warm. I'm trying to get into the habit of as soon as I finish a sub 60 degree ride, the hat goes on the head. Why? Simply to keep my head from cooling off too rapidly and to thwart sickness! Who knows though, with the Avian flu now in America, we may be all walking/riding around with masks. Anyways, not too much to report today kinda tired, but I'll be riding the fixied gear home. Good times.

quick update

A quick update, that road that seemed to meander as a country road wasn't quite what I had hoped. Sure enough after just enough to tease you, it ends abruptly as it tuens up and into a very hilly (very steep!) nice neighborhood. Oh well, it's pretty dang scenic even if it is short lived. It really reminded me of being in Farmville again. The road riding is pretty dang golden in the Heart of Virginia; believe it or not.