Le Tour...

Wow, the top 5 riders from last year are out! Their names were all associated with a doping ring in Spain. So far nothing has been proven for certain but it sure seems like they were all doping. I think all the riders not allowed to start Le Tour were guilty because if they were innocent couldn't they prove otherwise with a simple test? I'm talking about a dna test. Ulrich and others could have said, "This is complete bullshit, I am not involved. Here is a dna sample, match it to the bags of blood with my name on it." I read somewhere that it is a relatively simple test and could be done quickly, but none of the accused did it? Another thing that needs to be remembered is this is the only one Doctor that got busted. What about the doctors for all of the other riders, what about all of Discovery's doctors? I for one have to believe that 95% of the riders are doping to some degree. Yes, even Lance.

On the bright side of all of these riders getting the boot is we should have a closer more exciting tour. If you look at results from last years tour there was only 1 minute and 18 seconds separating 6th through 10th. Compared to 11 minutes and 1 second between 1st and 5th. For that matter, there were 8 riders within 11 minutes of 5th place. After those 8 riders you start seeing riders that were working for others. I'm telling you, this could be one of the most exciting Tours in years, unless of course they bust a doping ring in say, Italy?

OOPS...

Sunday afternoon, I figured I'd go for a ride, even though it was raining. I told my parent's I'd be back in two hours. I was planning on following the green arrows for the covered bridge ride. The CB is held in the fall and they have a 100k and a 50k, or so I thought. I figured I could do the 50k and be back in about two hours. It turns out the CB has a 100k and a 50 mile. About 1.5 hours in I noticed that I am on roads that I used to ride when I was living Plumsteadville. Crap, I must only be about half way. This is also about the time my rear wheel really starts "creaking". I couldn't put a lot of pressure on the pedals without the wheel creaking horribly. I guess Monday's ride in the rain had an effect on the wheel?

I think the organizers of the CB ride decided to put most of the climbing in the first section. This is probably good if your starting the ride from the beginning. For me, most of the climbing was at the end of the ride. So, I ended up climbing with a creaky wheel and creaky legs, ugh. I finally figured out I was about 30 minutes from home 3:15 into the ride. So much for a 2 hour ride in the rain. I ended up with 3:45 in the rain, and the longest road ride of the year!

I got home just in time for dinner, ok I was about 2 hours late. Mom made some salmon for dinner and it was yummy! A big thank you to my parents for understanding! They have really been helping out a lot by watching the kids, I think they know how much getting out on the bike means to my sanity. Thanks again Mom and Dad!

Busy Saturday...

Saturday morning after pancakes, my parents came over to babysit while Kris and I went car shopping. Yep, we need a new car. The jeep has something like 209,000 miles but still runs pretty good. I know the jeep could die at any moment and I'm not too thrilled having Kris and the kids driving around in it. We'll see what we end up with. Anyone want to buy a Jeep? Cheap?

We got back to the house and celebrated Dad's birthday. Jeb even made birthday cake (yeah, my mom helped) I got my dad a book about the behind the scenes of the final four. Everytime I give my dad a book as a gift he always does the same thing, glasses up and nose in the book:


Some things you can always count on from your parents!

After cake we loaded up in the mazda, the jeep's AC is broken, and headed out to my B-I-L's work. He works for a construction equipment rental place, that's the best I can describe it. We got a tour of the facility and Jeb got to ride on some of the equipment, he loved it! I even got to drive a "power roller".

After the "tour" we headed over to their house for pizza. We ended up getting home around 10:00, long day out and about.

ZERO LAPS... BUT A DAY WITH THOMAS

I didn't go to the crit again, so much for consistency. Instead we to Jeb to a "Day with Thomas the Tank engine". It was pretty cool, lots of stuff for Thomas fans to do. Jeb seemed to really enjoy himself.


There were a ton of kids there and every now and then you heard a kid having a melt down! We were lucky enough that neither Jeb or Sophie had a melt down. We made the comment that Disney World would probably be like that except on a much larger scale... we think we'll wait a while before we go to Disney World.

Ride with Cheff

Cheffery and I met at the Allamuchy school last night for a road ride around Great Meadows. "Great Meadows" is a fertile valley with sod farms throughout, there are some nice views from the ridges. I pull up to the school and there is Cheff slumped over his steering wheel sleeping, ok I exaggerated a bit. He says there is a storm coming and asks whether we should wait it out. I say I don't have time to wait it out. Besides, I'm bringing my rain cape, it rarely rains when I bring it, mostly when I forget it. So, I got the "rain cape mojo" working for me. We roll out and Cheff comments out trying out his new equipment, a new Pearl Izumi "rain" coat/vest. It seems like he is always trying out new equipment. We went hiking a couple of years ago and he tried out his "water-resistant" North Face shirt. It wasn't water-resistant but maybe water absorbent.

Knowing there is a storm coming I altered the route a bit. I decided to shorten it, we rode down the "near" side of the valley and around the ridge to the climbs. We get to the end of the valley and are heading towards the climbs and Cheff takes his vest off and says, "It looks like we are going to miss the storm. I guess I'll try this vest another time." Now we are jinxed! This is the guy that commented on our hookey day about Derek flatting and two seconds later Derek flats, his mojo is strong. I'm not sure my "rain-cape mojo" can compete with a Cheffery jinx! This could get ugly...

As we're climbing up the first climb we start to hear thunder and see lightning. The skys don't look too bad going up. Maybe we won't get caught out in the rain? We make it to the top and the skys open up and it starts to dump on us! Just in time for the descent! Talk about a "blinding" descent! It was so blinding that I made a wrong turn down a hill and we had to climb back up! At least it wasn't really dumping on us like it was. We get to the last climb and it looks like a steep one from the maps, and it was a doosey, not that long but STEEP.

All in all it was a great ride. I'm going to do the loop again. Hopefully without the rain. I guess my "rain-cape mojo" can't compete with the Cheffery jinx! At least he didn't say anything about a flat tire!

8 LAPS...

I went to T-Town last night for the crit. I wasn't really motivated for it. I guess I was tired from actually riding my bike 2 days in a row, and both rides were over an hour! (1.5 hilly ride and a 2hour rolling ride) So, my legs were a little "tender". Besides that, the whole drive down I kept noticing how windy it was. Yikes, a windy crit with tender legs...

I get there and it looks like it is going to be a pretty large group, and I start to notice some of the pros in the field. A couple of pros are easily distigushable from your average racer by their "markings". For instance, one marking could be rainbow stripes on the collar and sleeves. Other markings include some minor tattooing.

Shooting the Breeze

I rode from work again on Tuesday night and added a few climbs to the ones I did last week. The new climbs weren't as big as the other two, but I'll keep looking.

On my drive home I see two cyclists standing on the side of the road looking at one guys rear wheel-deraileur area. I figure since I was in no rush to get home I'd stop and help the guys out. So, I turned around, pull over get out of the car, thinking I'm going to really help these guys out with my mad mechanic skillz. I ask, "Do you need any help?"
"No thanks, we're just shooting the breeze." one guy responds.
"OK, later" and I'm off again.

"Shooting the breeze"?!?!? Who goes out for a bike ride and stops on the side of the road to "shoot the breeze"? I guess they couldn't ride and talk at the same time?

I don't get it...

Zero Laps... but Two Climbs

I decided I wouldn't go to the crit last night because the radar looked bad for the crit. I'd hate to drive out there only to find out it was cancelled. It looks like I made the correct decision because the crit was indeed cancelled. Instead of digging deep to stay onto the wheel in front of me at the crit. I figured I'd dig deep to make it to the top of a couple of "mountains" here in Sparta.

The first climb is up Edison Rd. It took me 19 minutes and 30 seconds to get to the top. I even did it with a manly 23 tooth cog! The climb does have some flat spots but for the most part is up the whole way. The second climb didn't seem as long but still hurt just as bad.


Actually, I really needed to get out on the bike. It felt really good climbing those hills in the woods and hardly seeing any cars. At one point I thought I heard a bear in the woods! Maybe it was just a squirrel?

Sunday...

I have some down time today. Kristen went shopping with the neighborhood girls. She even took Sophie. Sophie's first trip shopping with the girls, oh boy here we go...
Jeb and I went to Lake Nockamixon for a ride and a picnic. We rode down to the marina and they were having a sailboat race later. I'd never seen one and thought we'd try and come back. On our way back to the car for the picnic we stopped at the jungle gym. He was playing with this kid and the kid runs down the hill to the huge picnic, my guess his extended family and friends. So, Jeb follows him down there, he was good about it, he made sure I knew where he was going, and I had to go down and get him in the middle of some huge Hispanic family picnic there I am walking around after my blonde son, it was pretty funny. One of the ladies had a laugh with me.

Jeb for some reason decided to run back to the car instead of ride on the bike. He must have run a 1/4 to 1/2 mile I swear. I even had to ride to keep up with him!

Made it back to the boat race and boy was I confused! I talked to one guy and he gave me the low-down on how it works. The main official in the boat kept blowing his horn starting the race, I thought! Finally, got tired of sitting there watching sailboats sail around, slowly mind you as there wasn't much wind.

Came home and while Jeb was sleeping I did some things on my list. One of which was to shave my beard. I've been meaning to do it for the last three weeks or so. I think I'm going to try a new look:




I wonder how Kristen's going to like it? or my Mom? or work? hmmm...

Blog maintenance

I thought I'd use the blog to keep track of audiobooks I've listened to, list is on the right if interested. (I'll work on posting a link to the book info)

I also changed the for sale links, from an email link to a link to the photo.

Delaware

I had a GIS conference on the UD campus Thursday, "Patterns of Change". It was pretty cool to be back on campus for a "professional" conference. The highlight of the conference was the keynote speaker, Alan Carroll, Chief Cartographer for National Geographic, Natty G as oddtoe likes to call it. He spoke about the history of cartography at Natty G and what he saw as the future of cartography. Really cool stuff... for a GIS geek.

When I told one of my "superiors" that I wanted to go to the conference he acted concerned that I'd find another job. Working in Delaware would be great, but he really had nothing to worry about because I suck at "networking". I think I talked to a total of 2 people there. I even skipped out on lunch, I went to Cappriotti's for a roast beef sub, yummy. Stopped by Bike Line, not much as changed there. It was good to see Kiem, he's as nutty as ever, and Howard, he's busy as ever.

The afternoon sessions at the conference were good but I started to "lose interest". It was becoming a long day of presentations. I even bailed on the Capstone speaker and the opportunity for door prizes.

Headed over the Henry's to hang out before our ride. Brent, Rick and myself were going to ride after Rick got off work. I realized what I miss most about working in a bike shop. After a while you get to know customers and anytime they come in it is almost like a friend comes in, that's what I liked so much about working in a bike shop, there were always friends stopping by.

As we were getting ready to leave we noticed the dark clouds rolling in. We checked the radar and decided we'd be fine. I brought my rain cape (coat for you non-riders), there is a certain superstition, that it will only rain on you when you don't bring your rain cape, and it won't rain on you when you bring it. I brought it hoping for the later.

We rode over to Middle Run and White Clay Creek. The trails in Delaware have got to be some of the best rolling single track in the country! I spent the whole evening trying to keep my bike on the trail and trying to keep up with Brent and Rick. Those guys are fast, especially on those trails! Now I know why all the Delaware guys are fast through the twisty stuff! We rode the "skills" trail, they had a see-saw, that was pretty cool and the first time I'd ever ridden a see-saw. The last 30 minutes of the ride it was getting really dark in the woods, I had trouble seeing, and we could hear the rumbling of thunder. The rain didn't really let loose on us until we got to the road to go back to the shop. Boy was I struggling to stay on their wheels! I came off a couple of times, but they were kind enough to wait for me.

It was really great to ride with those guys! On one of the road sections Rick rode the longest wheelie of his career! Way to go Rick, he really is one of the smoothest riders out there...

To sum up my day in Delaware: I miss the food in DE, I miss hanging out in DE, I miss riding in DE and I miss my friends in DE.

Now, if only I could "network", maybe I'd get an opportunity to move back?