Cold, Pros and the End of an Era

Another weekend bites the dust, and it was a pretty good one. Originally, I was headed south to ride with the boys, but after a few beers on Friday night, I bailed on 5 hours of driving for 3-4 hours of riding. The temps were supposed to be in the high 30s so I skied for a few hours on Saturday morning and then kitted up for a ride. Riding in the winter up here is killer. No really, it is. Granted it is freaking cold most of the time and usually windy as all hell, but it is cool. The best part is the car traffic you see. The locals drive by and honk, wave and hoot when they see you. Many of them are people that I ride with during the warmer weather and many of them just know me as the guy that rides all the time in his “spider man suit”. Either way, they are stoked to see me out there hammering (or not) during the winter. Then there are the tourists who think that they are vacationing on Siberia. They look at you like you are a freak of nature. You can see them pointing and saying “did you see that guy on the bike?!?!”. It is in the high 30s and sunny people, we are not in Siberia. I saw two SUVs practically drive into the ditch because they were looking back at me trying to figure out what the hell they just saw. Pretty amusing.

On the “I am too Pro to train at home” front, I heard from Wardo this weekend.. He is in Silver City (that’s New Mexico for those of you Amateurs and/or Geographic Morons) and he was dropping the names of all sorts of pros . . .Creed this, Lipton that, TIAA-CREF this, altitude training blah blah blah. I am not sure how that is better than riding your bike in Myers’ garage, watching the 1970somthing Paris-Roubaix on a 12” TV and listening to me talk smack about how chubby he is do you?

Finally, I believe that I will be way faster this coming season., way faster. You want to know why? Hard Training? New Coach? Killer Team? Nope, none of the above. My favorite redneck bar burned to the ground Sunday night. That’s right folks, the Mooseland Grille is no more. Imagine the second hand smoke and beers that I usually consume during an average season at that establishment?!? No more. R.I.P.

Indoor Riding

Training has gone well this week. I have basically resigned myself to riding the trainer at least 5 days a week. It is a reality: I live in NH and have a job. SO I have been pounding away on the new training regime, watching races and listening to the iPod. It really hasn’t been that bad. We will see if I am still singing that tune in February when I am on Week 8 of indoor riding?!?
I hope to get outside this weekend. Temps will be borderline up here but reasonable in Boston or even Maine. I might give Tommy G a call.
So here is a photo of the Worlds course courtesy of (http://eurocrossers.blogspot.com/)

First off, I can’t believe that people are still racing Cross?!? Damn that is burly. Plus, look at these stairs! That will be epic in the first lap. I have to figure out how I can watch it. It must be on the internet somewhere right?!? Anyone know where? I read Matt Roy’s Report. Glad to hear he is able to head over to see Mo rip it up against the best in the world. Prediction: Mo, 27th.
Ciao

The Mullet is Back

Hmmm . . . .Doesn't Team Disco have a publicist? What was Eki thinking?

Thaw

Is there anyone that didn’t get out in there bike on Saturday? The January thaw was sweet on Saturday. I went to Boston to ride with a few of my homies and then some. The group ride was HUGE. I didn’t know what I was in for when AHM said meet at IBC. It was good to catch up with some folks and meet some others. The ride was relatively mellow and besides Hopper dumping his bike on the tracks within the first 5 minutes, the angry skinhead in Allston and the crazy Asian lady in the gold Mercedes with mad bling, the ride went off with out any issues. It was good to get outside and pedal.

It was back to reality in Sunday. Temps in the low 20s for most of the day so I skied under the snow guns for most of the day enjoying a artificial powder day and then went home for a trainer workout. I was scheduled for 3 hours, but cracked at 2. What can I say?!?. I am weak. Note to self, ride the trainer before I ski.

Training

Man, I am tired. I have been back to training for about 2.5 weeks, but this is the first week where I am doing more volume. I am freaking cracked and it is only Wednesday. The weather has been nuts. 50 and raining one day then -5 and snowing the next. This weekend looks to be pretty reasonable, so I think I will head down to boston to ride with some of the boys. Should be good to get outside on the bike. I guess I better finish building my winter training bike. Yah, the one I said I was going to build last week!

More training news . . . I taking the plunge into the training deep end. No slacking now.

Tucson, AZ

Ward and I are going to Tuscon the first week in March and need a place to stay. You know anyone out there or a good place for us to stay?

Eating

Training and Eating

I wish I could say I spent more time training than eating this weekend, but no dice. It rained here on Saturday. It is not supposed to rain here in January, but it did. We had house guests and Martha but on a culinary display. Our friend Steve and Rosa were visiting. Rosa is 8 months pregnant and they wanted to come up to the woods and chill. And chill we did. We were either eating, preparing our next meal or planning the meal after that. Here is a sampling of Saturday:
Get up, make some espresso.
Make some coffee.
Make breakfast (gingerbread pancakes with homemade apple marmalade, sour cream and syrup).
Eat and drink more coffee.
Cleanup dishes and pans from breakfast.

Start Lunch prep: roast vegetables, soak lentils, chop stuff
Bake bread (ingredients included roasted shallots, a beer, fontina cheese!)
Cook lunch (balsamic roasted winter vegatable lentil soup)
Open “Lunch Wine”.
Eat and drink.
Take a nap.

Wake up.
Start dinner prep
Cook Dinner (pasta squash bake with crazy cranberry, stilton, walnuts, etc)
Open “dinner wine”
Eat and drink.
Watch football.
Fall asleep watching game.

So you get the point. I did ride the rollers before lunch and I did snowshoe and ride rollers on Sunday. But official training starts today.

Our new squad is sponsored by Cycle-Smart. I am very excited to be working with Adam and his crew. It should take me to the next step.

The Loaf

Martha and I snuck up to Sugarloaf for a Tuesday and skied on Wednesday (Thanks Bill). Holy crap is that a sick mountain. We had a short sprinkle early in the morning and then it stopped and we had “hero” snow. They have some sick pitches there and I thought I was skiing pretty well until I saw the CVA kids training in a downhill course. You know they are hitting some serious speeds then they have double snow safety fencing setup to keep them from getting killed. And that is not to mention the race stock down hill boards they were skiing. Impressive.

My back is better, but still hurts at times. I rode the trainer successfully on Monday without much pain.

Training has resumed and things seem to be on track although I do get nervous when I hear people logging 20 hour weeks in the bike in January. It seems early, especially since I trained hard thru the end of November. It is cool. I need to stick to “the plan”.

Crash and Burn

Well, I guess it was inevitable. I crashed hard this weekend skiing. I hit some variable terrain and went “over the handle bars”. On tele, that is a big problem. I landed on my back and side, but the worst part was that somehow my arm got behind me and I landed on my hand/pole and pole grip. I now have a large bruise on my lower back/hip area that mysteriously looks like a pole grip. Going up stairs, dropping a knee in a tele turn and most importantly pedaling a bike causes severe pain to shoot thru my back. Sweet.

The good new is that it is simply a bruise. It feels like a charley-horse in my back. I should be all set in a day or so. Other than that, the weekend was good. Martha got out on her new phat boards and was ripping them, I found my new “everyday” tele ski at the Tele-Daze demo day (K2 Supers with the O2) and I spent two evenings in the bar. I know I am supposed to be training but hey it is still January after all. Plus, I resisted going to the bar last night after repeated harassment. Baby Steps.

Random Junk

Matt’s Not So Daily Blog. What can I say. Life is moving, but nothing too exciting. I started training yesterday. Rode the trainer and watched the 2005 Paris Roubaix. That race is absolutely inspiring. I want to be a hard enough to thrive in those conditions. Maybe this season. Nordic skiing tonight with Melon Calves. I should get flogged.

Winter is in full-effect here but the season feels like it is around the corner. We got a sneak preview of the new kits for next season. They look hot. I am interested to see what the team bike paint jobs look like. Should be nothing but spectactular. Ever see an IF paint job that wasn’t?

Page looks to have found his legs over the Christmas Cross Blitz in Europe. That guy is amazing. How can he ride all year long? Good form at Fitchburg then good form in January?!? Sick.

I saw a photo of Tyler training in CO with some boys. I wonder if he is fit enough to hang when he gets cleared?

That’s all for now.