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.

Cure for the indoor riding blues (aka the time I rode off the trainer, through the wall and into the next room).

I've done the impossible. I've learned to ride the trainer effectively; with a motivation and fervor like never before. With the proper stimuli, it just doesn't bother me so much anymore. The professional might overlook a couple key ingredients to an effective workout. The Amateur does not. Simply put, success is in the details. Learn it. Live it. Love it. It's 8 am on a Tuesday. The Mainstay's watch says it's time for a cocktail. It's the fucking holidays. HTFU.

Don't work.

My favorite and most thought provoking urinal experience in quite a while....courtesy of a South Carolina gas station bathroom. Two words and so many potential meanings....and while relieving myself, I pondered a few. What was the author trying to tell me? "Don't work"....as in "(it) don't work"? Like "it's broke"? Or did he mean for me not to work (it)...with "it" being the urinal. Or was it simply some ingenious short hand for "it don't work, 'cause it's broke...so don't go and try to work it". Or maybe he was trying to tell me personally not to work? As in I should quit my job. I'm ok with that too. I don't like to work so much anyway.

Separated at Birth (the legend of young Tommy Danielstay)

Two brothers, separated at birth. The Mainstay and Tommy D. Amateur cyclist and professional cyclist. Pacesetter Steel Service and Garmin. Full-blown alcoholic and full-blown hypochondriac. Sarah and Stephanie. Marlowe and Fido....similar traits, different paths. But there's one obvious connection that really ties this whole thing together. They both love their rainbows. Tommy D seeks them out for a photo op like the Def Leprechaun looking for his pot o' gold. The Mainstay...he just likes rainbow stickers on his bike. And who can blame him, really? One is no less adorable than the other. Love is a rainbow. And such is the legend of young Tommy Danielstay.

Insulting a dead man: Payne Stewart just rolled over in his grave.

Boonen! (aka the time I brought the news a day late and a dollar short...again)

I just came across this pic, and it reminded me of someone. Someone that has worn the rainbow stripes...and it's neither The Mainstay, nor Hoppy. It's someone that has won Roubaix. Someone that's been caught celebrating too early...and apparently too often. Yes, it's old news. But beggars can't be chosers. I honestly have no idea whether or not you're a beggar, but you're definitely not a chooser. Not here, you're not. I'm The Amateur, and I call the shots around here. You'll get the news when I get around to it.

How to utterly ruin a charity ride & lose a sponsor all in the same day

How it's done: Find a charity ride (in this case, The Spin for Kids...a century to raise money for Camp Twin Lakes. Agree to do the ride (half of it...no more) with a potential sponsor, who happens to be the guy putting on the ride (and raises many thousands of dollars for said cause). Bring the squad, plus two new recruits (Towel Boy and The Fever). In the first 6 minutes of the ride, put the boys on the front to ride a steady tempo...a tempo kinda like Quick Step would ride to get Boonen to the line (no pun intended) in the last 5k of a spring classic (any classic, your choice)....in a crosswind, in the gutter, and uphill. Drop potential sponsor like a hot rock, and wait for him at the rest stop about an hour and a half in...after you've eaten all the food HE provided for the ride...so he gets to ride the next hour alone and in the wind. This gives him plenty of time to ponder what a strong team you have. Tell him thank you, that you enjoyed it, and that it's time to cut the ride short so you can eat all the buffalo wings he provided for the finish. Now that's PRO right there. As the Def Leprechaun might say..."Well played, boys!" Glad we could make it.

Amateurity: Catch the fever!

Jittery Joe's Pro Cycling Team has confirmed it will take a step back in 2009, with the team adopting amateur status. The team will concentrate on racing on the east coast and continue working with young rider development. "While the support from Jittery Joe's continues to be strong, the combination of the loss of auxiliary cash sponsors and the spike of travel costs has caused us to re-think our budget," said team manager Micah Rice. "We just decided that we needed to take a step back to keep the programme healthy-neither riders nor sponsors would be happy if we tried to stretch the budget too thin". The team will also continue its Patron Program which allows individuals to sponsor riders to help in the development of young aspiring professionals. "I hate to see it happen, but on the other hand since as a firm we're trying to expand in the southeast, in some ways we can have a stronger presence as an amateur team because we'll be at more things in more concentrated ways," said Bob Googe, the CEO of Jittery Joe's Franchising. "We expect to be back in the pro peloton very soon as we start opening new stores and can afford to put more money into the programme."

Towel Boy! (Slim's bachelor party Part I)

Sometimes a good nickname simply comes from one's obvious and innate characteristics. Other times, it's a poor decision and a laugh at one's expense. Oftentimes, it involves many cocktails. But rarely does one actually volunteer for said nickname. And nearly never do all of the above circumstances align at the very same moment in time. That's when the nickname actually sticks. Colby, this one's gonna be around for a while. And by a while, I mean forever.

No porn. No pretense. No tan lines. Just amateur.

Keep your clothes on folks. Unlike The Imposter, 2beamateur remains a family-friendly site.

The time I liked Levi (aka the time Levi knocked Millar's tooth out with a cork and scorched his eyeballs with a spot of bubbly)

Armstrong: Riders react (and confirm that Levi is a perennial non-factor at Astana)

Alejandro Valverde (Caisse d’Epargne): "If he did come back, he’d be ready to race the Tour, even though I don’t know if he could win it. I know that he hasn’t lost his physical form and if he begins to train in earnest he could be right there. I find it hard to believe that he’d come back, but if there are rumors, maybe something’s there. Astana with Contador and Armstrong would be one hell of a team!" True. But what about Levi?! Would somebody please let him ride? Let Levi ride. PLEASE.... SOMEBODY!

UPDATE: Apparently Johan won't. He had this to say about Astana's position at the Vuelta: "The team order is strictly put in place, though. "Alberto is the leader of the team. If the logic is respected, he is the best climber. The Angliru is very steep, in theory it should be good for him. But it's always good to have a second guy up there." So Levi is the second guy. The second guy doesn't win. The second guy is the first loser. The Mainstay knows that.

The Amateur for President!

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