Summertime

Didn’t DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince have a song about summertime? I believe I was in that video this weekend, North Country style.

I will bore you with the details:

No racing this weekend. This was the first of several weekends in August that we are not racing. It was VERY nice. It all started with an outdoor dinner at BIN 42, the new wine bar in Littleton. Yes, we have a wine bar. No, Boone’s Farm is not on the wine list. After several delicious glasses of wine, flat bread, ice cream and chocolate chip cookies, we headed home for a nice nights slumber.

Saturday, we awoke, drank some coffee, ate (well Martha made them first and then I ate them) Belgian (trying to get my Vervecken on) Waffles and saddled up for a long climb intensive ride. We hit Kinsman Notch, Moosilauke and Swiftwater: totally sweet climbing and even better descending. Mousilauke is by far one of the best climbs in New England. Most people that come to the Whites to climb do the standard routes: Kanc, Bear Notch, Crawford, etc. Mousilauke is narrow, very lightly traveled, twisty, 30 minute (depending on the Wine Consumption Factor or the WCF) climb with an equally exciting 55+ MPH twisty decent off of the other side, Stefano Garzelli style. Killer.

As a side note for you crossers: We saw Jesse Anthony out climbing the backside of Kinsman as we descended at 50+ mph. Building base back up for Cross perhaps?

Saturday ended with Sauza-Ritas on the deck at Rosa Flamingos. Yes, it was a good day.

Sunday we awoke early thanks to a hungry cat and decided to head over to Gorham for breakfast. I had scrambled eggs made with cream, fresh parmesan cheese, fresh garlic and fresh basil. Did I mention Fresh? Oh yeah, it was rich. Martha of course had fresh fruit (which included a yellow kiwi, ever heard of such a thing?), yogurt and granola.

After breakfast, we drove up into Pinkham and took ole Daisy for a hike up to a swimming hole. The weather was still pretty chilly (in the low 60s) when we got to the hole, so only Daisy swam. Then we hiked out. By the time we got back to the trail head, most of the tourists were just heading out on the trail. Suckas missed the best part of the day.

We had plans to meet a few friends in East Burke to rip some mtbing at Kingdom Trails and by the time we got out on the trail the group had grown to 15 people! We ripped the kind single track for a few hours and headed to the pub.

Now up until this point, I was still thinking: yah, this little break is good for me and “my form” will be good come cross season. Then it happened and it totally blind sided me. I was finishing my first Hoppin’ Mad Trout IPA at the pub chatting with Gabe and Joanna and Gabe said it . . . .tele-skiing. Fucking Tele-skiing! Are you kidding me dude? It isn’t even August 1st! It spiraled out of control from there . . . discussions about a friend of ours who was cutting glades this summer for some trust funder who owned a local hill, amazing back-country at Big Jay, some local peak that they cut a ski trail on, etc. I pounded another beer. Bike racing?!?!?! What’s that?

In case you are keeping track . . . .after wine, ice cream, beer, sauza ritas, etc I still didn’t gain any weight. 147 lbs this morning.

PARADISE

Stats from the weekend:

Friday
No. of hours “worked”: 2
No. of hours spent in the coffee shop in Hanover: 2
No. of hours mowing the lawn: 1
No of hours spent swimming in the river with the dog: 1
No. of sprints done in my workout: 3
No. of glasses of wine: 5 (it worked for Cipo)

Saturday
No. of Races: 1
No. of left hand turns: 195 (approximately)
No of spokes broken: 1
No. of dudes pissed at me for opening a huge gap when the race was lined out while I figured out I had a broken spoke: too many to count
No. of free laps I took to get to the pit and change a wheel: 2 (give me a break, they were 55 second laps)
No. of times Skip Foley took the wheel I was on: 5
No. of times I did battle with Skip Foley to hold said wheel: 0 (You seen the size of him? You seen the size of me?)
No of times I hit my pedal in Turn 2: 1
No. of Pizza Primes Martha won: 1

Sunday
Cups of Coffee: 3
Bottles of water before ride: 3
No. of times I had to pee before said ride: 4
No. of Benedryl I took before ride: 2
No. of hours riding sweet single track:4
No. of chainring puncture wounds to my beautiful wife’s dainty legs: 1
No. of whoopie pies consumed mid-ride: 1
No of margaritas consumed after the ride: 2

I ran into two people that I normally only see during ski season last week. Both asked if I have been sick. Sick? I ask. Yah, you look so skinny. Ha! Pretty amusing. I am down about 4.5 kilos (kilos . . .so Euro) since ski season. Scrawny is the new black.

I rode my bike to work this morning because I knew it was going to storm this afternoon and my workout might get cut short. By the looks of the radar right now, that may not have been the smartest idea. Better get the swim fins out to get home. I should have packed the rain cape.

Not so Daily blogging these days. Summer has finally arrived and I have been truly enjoying it. The last time I blogged was after Noho. I took 3 days completely off the bike and tried to re-energize. I fished Forrest Lake with my man GB , grilled some and enjoyed a few beers on the deck. It was nice.

Saturday we went to Attleboro Crit. I won’t bore you with the details. We raced well as a squad, I felt good. We could have been better. I could have felt better. McCormack won. We bombed back for a Doll summer party. Drank too many beers but still was the first to leave. Imagine that.

Sunday, I finally took the maiden voyage on my new IF Deluxe . It was a long awaited ride and the bike didn’t disappoint. Amazing. I would promise to post some pics, but if my recent track record holds true, it will never happen. Jamie and Nicole came up this weekend to skool me on the single track. As always, JB is in amazing shape. I have to race all spring to get the form he gets after 3 weeks of riding. Insane.

NoHo

I went to NoHo yesterday for the 4th annual Downtown Crit. There is something about this race that I love. On paper it looks pretty boring, 4-corner, 1K, 60 minute crit, but I always have a great time at this race. After my early exit from the Fitch I wasn’t sure how my legs would feel, but I was hoping for the best.

The race went pretty well and as a team we seemed to be racing well as a unit. I am one of the least experienced guys on the squad, so I am always a bit gun-shy, but yesterday the race seemed to flow. Stan and Jon delivered the goods and were in the money. Personally, I felt much better. The race didn’t seem that fast, but there were only 30 finishers out of 54 starters.

I owe a HUGE apology to MegA. She walked past the boys and me yesterday and I looked right at her with the look that says “ah, hi. . . .you look familiar, but I can’t quite but a name to the face”. My bad.

F-Burg

Well Fitchburg is over and yes, I still hate that race. The short report goes like this-

TT: Stayed dry, rode mellow to conserve energy for the next three days. (I would have won the 3/4 Women’s TT!)

Circuit: Got popped and had to ride 2 humiliating laps solo to finish so I could start the road race. Watched the pro race and was pretty happy they had their own race.

Road Race: Rode well for 3 laps, gave up my wheel for a teammate, chased, but never saw the bunch again. I had no motivation (translation: I was a lame wuss ass) to ride 40 more miles to finish. Rode to the car. DNF, lame.

So I was obviously not ready mentally or physically to take on Fitch. Not sure if it has cracked me or motivated me, time will tell.