Day Off!

I had a good day off yesterday. Of course, the obligatory pass out on the sofa, waking up oblivious to my surrounding occured... although I at least had a productive day.

For lunch, I decided to give Mama Maria's italian lunch buffet a shot. Katie and I dine at Mama Maria's fairly regularly... and it is very good. The buffet isn't huge like a Calabash or Super Crazy Chinese... but it is tasty. I filled up on Plates of spaghetti, a salad, tons of garlic knots, and a couple slices of pizza. Very tasty, and very filling! Mama Maria's seems to be catching on with the cycling culture as well... there were quite a few cyclists in the room. How often to you get to talk about the Giro with another cycling fan? Morris Elam and I speculated on Basso, Ullrich, Guitierrez, Simoni, and of course Cunego's lack of prosperity. Good times.

After lunch, I switched out chainrings on the Klein, got a haircut, and returned home just in time to see the UPS guy dropping off my new rear disc wheel (not that I'm a great TT'ist... but I'll pretend). After stretching out the S3 tubular it was nap time! I passed out HARD on the sofa... only to be awakened suddenly by the phone ringing and Katie getting home at the same time. By now it's 4:00, she has errands to run... and I've got a bike to ride. Unfortunately my power nap was just long enough to get to the deep REM sleep... meaning that I was incredibly groggy. No problem... a little Rock Star Juiced (70% real fruit juice!)... and I was partying like a rock star.

Time to ride... a Tuesday off means I can make the Famous Tuesday Night Ride in downtown Roanoke! I've only done the ride a handful of times... it's definately a lot of fun; a good route indeed. I figured to maximize my workout quality... I'd ride the fixed gear. I've been riding a fixed gear for a while now... but last night was the first group ride I've taken it on. Of course Bernie Sanders showed up... meaning I should've taken my Klein with gears and the ability to coast. In a nutshell... the ride was a blast, you can really fly up all but the steepest climbs on a fixed gear... but never get a chance to really rest on the downhills.

Back to the Giro. Looks like Basso all but locked up the Giro today. I guess it must've been too cold for Danielson today; I would've liked to have seen him move up in the GC... not down!

Is anybody from back East planning on doing Mountains of Misery this weekend?

Bontrager Batcage

The Bontrager Batcage H20 cage rocks... holds bottles like a champ, and can even tote a Venti Iced Chai from Starbucks. I've been meaning to sing its praises for a while now... but better late than never. I've been exclusively using the batcage for a few years now... only the XXX Lite Carbon cage threatens its existenc eon my bike. In other news, I had the worst bout with allergies since the Ed Elliot Crit yesterday; lesson learned... mow the lawn after the ride.

lactic implosion

Yes, it's true... I cracked yesterday. I cracked hard. It was mother's day, and the JRVS Sunday morning ride had a smaller group than usual. Missing were many of the regular heavy hitters, but present were the sluggers... Cam and Todd. Wow... I had not ridden with Todd at all this year, other than a few warm up laps at Tyson's this year. Todd is incredibly strong and is focusing most of his energy on road racing this year with the Snow Valley amateur-elite team. At one point he and I got off the front and he just hammered... I've never seen anybody hammer so hard, but so smooth.

Anyways, back to my morning. It seems the week's efforts were finally catching up with me; I can buffer a lot of lactic acid build up, but once it reaches critical mass... I'm done. Chris, breakaway specialist/lead out man extra ordinaire/fellow Cat3/fellow allergy sufferer, was also having a rough day with the legs. On the infamous col' de Stonehouse I popped... slowly bobbing and weaving at the foot of the climb watching the Snow Valley duo fly up the road. My plan was to salvage what I had left and ride back with Chris. Next thing, I see Cam dropping back... "great..." I thought, "know I've GOT to dig in an go". I woke up in the morning with heavy legs and tight hamstrings, not much spark, but they still worked. Nevertheless, I dug in deep to get up the road to Cam (who was going just easy enough for me to bridge up, but hard enough to make me dig deep). As I caught up with Cam, we could see Todd and Steve up the road.

I was completely spent... spent enough that if I was riding solo, I would've called it a day and spun home in the 39t. I had to dig in deep to stay on Cam's wheel... we were definately cruising, slowly reeling in Todd, but at a pace I could sustain. As we hit rollers heading inro the "Roubaix" stretch, the rubber band finally snapped. I was on my own. The legs refused to turn over. I was spent, my legs burned... and threatened to cramp. I could barely maintain 100 watts for the remainder of the ride. I've never cracked like that before... never so hard. In hindsight, I'm glad Cam dropped back and pushed me past my limits. On a normal day, I would've been able to keep up... and even contribute to the pace; I've never had that much lactic burn before.

I actually rode my mountain bike...

I rode my big 29er yesterday for the first time since New Year's Day. I admit I've been neglecting the mountain bike this year; but mountain biking doesn't have the appeal it once did for me. However, spending time on the dirt yesterday was exactly what I needed. The frustations of allergies and less than desireable results lately had taken a toll on my ego; my mind needed a change, but wanted to pedal... therefore a mountain bike ride was the remedy. I ended up riding part of the proposed Commonwealth games XC course. It'll definately be a great course; but it's a shame I'm not a climber. Fortunately, at least, the major climb is fairly gradual and super smooth. Who knows if I'll be racing or not... I've found that mountain biking agitates my twice broken collarbone. Regardless of my mountain biking plans, I'll definately make it to the 19th Annual Tidewater Mountain Bike Challenge.

As for racing, no plans until the PLT #1 Time Trial on June 11th. Watch out July.

worst performance ever...

This past weekend was incredibly disappointing! Chalk it up to a horrible time trial on Saturday and a laughable effort in Sunday's Ed Elliot Crit. Saturday's time trial was a 15 mile out and back course full of rollers... should've been the perfect course for me! Oh well... maybe next year I suppose; hopefully next year my breakfast won't continually try to come back up either. Sunday, my allergies were the worst they've EVER been while riding. After getting pulled by the moto-ref, I could not breathe... I could tell the inside of my nose was raw and bloody, my throat felt as if it were on fire. Oh well... while I'm frustrated and disappointed... this summer will be a different story.