Absolutely, positively would've been my prom date.

The Mainstay: bringin' Mapei back

Seriously, your friend should be wearing a helmet. Pretty sweet dog though. Cool shades too. Must be a shot from the feed zone...what's in the musette?

Nick, please return your team clothing...NOW. Thank you.

River Falls Road Race: by the numbers

Greenville: the land of the free lap in a road race...I should've taken one, but that would've meant that I would have to get back in the race. No thanks. I'll take a DNF, and my buddy Mainstay will as well. Two DNF's please, and thank you. The race report is pretty simple. On the 4th lap, The Mainstay came off on the climb. I made the front group over the climb, got cocky, and got ridden straight the fuck off the wheel in front of me on a flat section on the backside. Not gapped off. I didn't have to hit the brakes because a couple idiots touched wheels. No one crashed. No nasty crosswinds. I wasn't eating, and there were no ill-timed attacks. I couldn't hold a wheel on a flat section of road. Done. In my opinion, they were just going way too fast. The front of that race appeared to be in a BIG hurry. My preparation was spot on, so I'm not really sure where it all went wrong. I got my traditional pre race cinnamon twists from Einstein's and everything. Two of them. That obviously didn't work, so now I'm starting to think I should've trained this winter.

Number of miles driven: 350

Number of miles in the race: 66

Number of miles raced: 25

Hours in the car: 6

Hours on the bike: 1

Average watts: pretty low (I got droppped)

Average watts of the Mainstay: pretty low (he got dropped)

Average watts of the winner: pretty high (he won)

Number of beers in the cooler: 12

Number of beers consumed before hitting the GA state line: 12

Number of stops to replenish supply: 1

Number of beers purchased: 2

Number of ounces in each beer: 24 (2- 24 oz beers for $2.22- HTFU!)

So I decided it was time to start training seriously again. So I rode 3.5 hrs on Tuesday....rode all the way from Atlanta to the Tuesday night crit. I figure that'll get me through July-ish.

Towel Boy: En Fuego

It's that time of year again...the only event bigger than the T500 has officially kicked off for 2009. The Tuesday night crit is here...and apparently one man listened to the annual "win or you're fired" speech. Towel Boy. Sure, he showed up halfway through the ride, but he was doing repeats at the mountain beforehand. Sure we had 8 guys. And of course, most of the field was straight Cat 6 material. ProTour kits? Yep. Mismatched? Sure, sometimes. Primal Wear? Of course. Plenty of it. But fuck it...Towel Boy laid down the law. After numerous attempts to get up the road and stay there, Towel Boy soon learned that a sprint was simply unavoidable. Way too much horsepower in the field behind for anything to stick. And by horsepower, I do mean Primal Wear. So at 500 meters, he found a largeish Mapei/Liquigas composite rider to tuck in behind. And at one hundred meters...he launched his sprint like a bat out of hell. He came around one rider and slayed two ProTour teams at the same time! That's how Towel Boy does it on Tuesdays. HTFU.

SIDS- It's not just for babies anymore.

Seriously, what the fuck is going on? It's like SIDS for grown-ups over there. But let's not jump to conclusions. This sort of thing happens all the time...perfectly healthy, elite-trained 21 year-old guys just dying in their sleep. No warning, no 58% hematocrit, no nothing. Total shock to everyone. Always is. I can guarantee he wasn't surprised that he didn't wake up...but now everyone else (management, riders, et al) has to act with utter shock and dismay in order to cover their own asses. Offensively pseudo naive quote of the day- "Nolf called his parents and said, 'Tomorrow, I will race hard, I will give it a try.' There were no signs that he was ill or sick." Never is...

Protect your junk.

Mensa International

I had an awesome hour long ride this morning. To start my ride, I had one of the most amazing conversations I've had in quite some time. One of those where you're the smartest guy in the room (or in this case, the Kennesaw Mtn. parking lot). And that doesn't happen very often in my world. It was between me and some guy, and it went something like this:

Some guy: Hey, how long are you riding today?

Me: Not very long...maybe an hour or so.

Some guy: How far do you go in an hour?

Me: Not very far...probably about 15 miles.

Some guy: Wow...what is that...about 30 miles an hour?

Me: No, it's a little closer to 15 miles an hour.

Some guy: I thought it was closer to 30 miles an hour.

Me: Yeah, I could see that...but no. It's about 15 miles...in one hour. Which pencils out to roughly 15 miles an hour.

Some guy: Ok, have a good ride.

Me: Thanks.

For all my satisfaction in outwitting the poor fella in the parking lot, things turned south on me in a hurry. Everything was all nice and sunny at the base of the mountain, but unbeknownst to me there was an arctic monsoon going on at the top. Trashman-like conditions. All my clothing was saturated after the first trip up, but I continued for a couple more repeats. By the third, I would've liked to crawl into a corner in the fetal position and cry for a while. But I couldn't find a corner, so I reminded myself of the time The Imposter felt hard and kept on riding. Then I realized I wasn't hard, and I was very uncomfortable. So I went home and decided I need to HTFU.