brewfest '09

For the first time, I took my bike on a work trip, so I went on a couple ridiculous night time rides. Ridiculous, because who rides around Auburn, Maine at 10:30PM when it's 30 degrees out?

On Friday night I got lost, but used the city lights reflecting off the clouds to at least have a general idea where I was. The best street name I saw was Jackass Annie Rd, in Minot, ME. And that was a real street, not someone's driveway with a vanity sign.

Yesterday I scooted out of work early (early meaning that after getting up at 4:30 AM, I worked from 5AM to 5PM, instead of 7!) to go to the Maine Brew Festival in Portland with Ryan, Melissa, and their friends.

My search for Belgian style beer led me to Allagash brewery, and their Tripel is awesome. Ties La Fin Du Monde, which I wrote about before as my fave. I'm going to figure out how to brew it myself.

The beer was plentiful, so the restroom was busy. Some dude marched into the packed bathroom and announced, "I've got enough piss in me to launch a space shuttle!" Try picturing that.

Jay's putting on another brewers festival in Manchester, NH next weekend, but I'll be flying off to Memphis, from Manchester that day so...I can't think of a better way to get ready to fly.

Anyone have a new Droid phone? I'm very intrigued, but PO'd to hear a report that it will not work with Yahoo email. What the F?

My toe that I thought I broke last Tuesday has turned all shades of crimson and blue, but it's feeling better. And with that non-sequitur, I bid you adieu.

Opportunity of a lifetime

My brother's in Aspen this weekend, and I'm going to L.A. Nice.

Of course, by LA, I mean Lewiston-Auburn. Maine. I'm going for another study visit, and we're working a lot while there, 5:00AM to 8:30 PM, which is indicative of my yeoman's work ethic.

Last weekend he and I watched the Patriots, who throttled the Titans 59-0, in a snowstorm. We dressed like cast members on The Deadliest Catch, with full foul weather gear and hat over several layers of long underwear and other technical fabrics.

If not for a hot Italian sausage which I considered shoving into my mittens to warm my hands, I still would've have been freezing. We had amazing seats, 13 rows off the field, which made our region a prime target for snowballs from the nosebleed sections.

More exciting than that blowout, is the opportunity you have to win a new custom Independent Fabrication frame and fork! My team is running a raffle, with a grand prize of a custom built steel frame and fork, your choice of road, track, cyclocross, mountain, or touring. There are also a slew of other cycling gear prizes: Stan's NoTubes wheelset, Tifosi shades, WTB saddle and tires, Time pedals, Ergon grips, and more.

We're trying to sell 600 tickets, and tickets cost 5 bucks. If you spend $100 or more, you get a special prize from IFMTBing. The drawing is coming right up, November 15. So please buy some tickets from me, or at http://www.bikereg.com/events/register.asp?eventid=8526

To get in touch, just leave a comment, or email me, and I'll get you yours. Thank you very much!

I've been tickled pink all year with my IF SSR road bike. The fit, feel, and handling are all exactly what I wanted, and now's your chance to get your own.

On Monday night, in return for a signed jersey, Robert, the owner of La Festa Brick and Brew, in Dover, NH invited Teddy (who invited his family) for a feast you would not believe! I wish I had a picture of it. We got 4 delectable pizzas from the brick oven and NY style, garlic knots, cinnamon knots, excellent beer like Moat Mtn Octoberfest and Dogfish head on tap, and La Fin du Monde, my new favorite, plus others in bottles, a bottle of wine for the ladies, German chocolate cake for all, and huge chocolate chip cookies. It was ludicrous, and the owner urged it, so I've had my lunches all week taken care of! Thank you so much, Rob.

I'll write more when there's news. Thanks for reading, and supporting my IFRacing team.

I was in Charlotte, NC the last few days working, and the biggest reward for working is a killer dinner, but unfortunately I'm on my way to a freshman 15 at my new job. To get a little exercise, I ran up and down the 20 floor hotel stairwell a few times. At the top, I couldn't resist going past the "employees only" sign, through the trap door, and walking around on the roof top. Hanging my head over the edge, like 200 feet up is a pretty crazy view. But then I saw a few people in the office building across the street watching me watch them watch me watch them... Anyway I headed down before anyone reported me to the front desk.

That reminds me of climbing the radio tower with Pete Nelson at Holderness.

Since I'm in no condition to race cyclocross this fall, I've been putting my new mountain bike through it's paces. These days, during this cold snap, it's the best thing going. Running still hurts my knees, even if I just shuffle along, and when I ride a road bike I freeze, so I'm turning into a mountain goat. Plus I just got a sick new light from Wheel Power, about as bright as a car headlight, so early sunsets are no prob. I just need Andy to help me get a set of roller skis, so I can get ready to smoke some ski races this winter.

Other news: I'm working for Ora, and I like it a lot. Great people, good variety, learning a lot. I've been there since right after I returned from Nationals. Did I even blog about that? I got 10th, but it was a saga.

I wrapped up the year pretty well in terms of cycling even though my last few raced sucked. See this.

Tomorrow, Teddy and I are going to Foxboro to see the Patriots. Good times. Hope they are so good I don't notice that it's only going to be 40 degrees and raining!

Mixed bag

I had my last day of work, and of class today. I'm bummed about leaving Wheel Power. That was a fun job. It didn't make me a better cyclist, nor better student, but I had a lot of fun there for three months, so if they'll have me, maybe I'll keep working there in the fall. Or maybe not.

And I had my last day of Human Anatomy and Physiology I. We had our lab final tonight. I was convinced that I bombed my test last Monday. Turns out I got a B, and after the teacher put in on the curve, I got my third 99%. So with that in the bank, I just need a 69% to get an A in the class. I have a hunch I did it.

'Twas another tricky test, as they've all been, but if I know my muscles, nerves, and the other million things we've learned, I did A-ok. Ha. A pun for your enjoyment.

Human A&P II some day in the future, when I figure out where I'll be living, and what my schedule is.

Moving right along: Have any wedding present ideas? Throw them out there. Gracias!

Finally, a face like this should win the race. But it didn't. Next year.

Dog days of summer

I'm a little stressed because I have two final exams this week, and I'm trying to train for Cascade Cycling Classic (yet my legs feel like dog turd) while simultaneously working part time for the best bike shop west of the mighty Exeter River. That's Wheel Power, in case you didn't know. And I had my car serviced today, and my mechanic recommended selling it before I start getting a spate of breakdowns.

I just took final exam #1, and I'm very concerned about the outcome. Luckily, my professor grades on a stiff curve, which has seen me take all A's so far. But I was almost that last departure from the test, after all the other students, and I still wasn't sure I had really gotten much right.

Factoid: I've ridden bikes 250 hours this training year. My training year started in December. Plus I did some XC skiing and weight lifting, so maybe I'm up to 300 hours. That sounds like a slim year of training, since Joe Friel's Training Bible recommends 850-1200 annual hours for a Cat 1 or Pro. And those slim hours are one reason I'm nervous about Cascade.

My teammates and I did a strenuous training ride in the White Mountains. It involved the Kanc, Bear Notch, Crawford Notch, Kinsman Notch, and the frickin hard climb out of Bethlehem, NH (founded Dec 25, 1799, as I read on the sign). In case you aren't from NH, in other parts of the world, notches are know as "passes". Or "gaps" if you're from Vermont. We did something like 8000 ft of climbing, which should be good prep for Cascade.

After that epic adventure I began project: Restore Robbie's Legs (which honestly, feel like death), and polished off a gallon of ice cream, (mine and Kevin's) and then had dinner with Holderness School's Head, Phil Peck and wife, Robin, who are about the nicest couple ever. There are many of those at Holderness. Phil was fresh back from riding the Prouty, a cancer benefit ride for Dartmouth, in which he tacked on a few extra miles for a nice, round 130!

Makes me feel a little soft, only riding 95.

Fitchburg...yeah. Two top-11's.

This weekend is my college friend/roommate's wedding, then Cascade, then National Championships the following week, also in Bend, Oregon. And after I fly back on Friday, my summer vacation is two days, before my next job starts, with Ora.

Le Tour's on TV now, and I need dinner. Wish my team luck at Superweek, where they're racing for the next week.

Pre-Fitchburg Longsjo

There are rare times when I'm happier being a spectator than a racer. Cyclocross races in general, and last night at the Exeter Criterium was another. I missed the first 40 minutes, then tossed the sheep brain back in the formaldehyde, and skipped out of my lab class to catch the last 8 laps. And I watched Todd take a prime. But it's good that I wasn't racing, because my legs feel flat.

Fitchburg Longsjo starts tomorrow with a new time trial. I'm the 10th starter in the Pro-1-2 category, and had dreamed of setting an early fastest early time until I scrolled down and see that Tom Zirbel will start 1 minute behind me. If Tom rides like Tom, he'll eclipse me before I even finish. And the rest of the field is stacked, so I don't need to worry about sticking around for the podium ceremony anyway. Yup, class again, after the race tomorrow.

I did some openers today, and after a cloudy day, where the temp topped out at 61, I went out at 4PM, and 10 minutes later the sky opened up, the kind of opening up that looks yellow or red on a weather radar map. Right. I had been meaning to wash my bike.

As I rode, I started thinking about how I'm sore from five minutes of wakeboarding last weekend with Lauren and Rudy. Tons of fun to take a weekend off from racing, see friends, and get our boat out of hibernation, which involved some launch ramp car-boat jumpstarting calisthenics. I wish I had pictures, but since everyone played an integral role in the orchestration, we didn't have a photographer. Did we, Lauren?

Jump to today, and it hurts to stand and pull on the handlebars. But in anatomy, one of my million projects is learning all the muscles. Specifically, my latissimus dorsi and brachialis, along with everything else in my back and arms is ruined. I'm going to have to dig deep in my bag of tricks tomorrow.

To add a little debate point, I LOVE the idea of racing some stages of the Tour de France without radios. Racers will have to do their own thinking, pay attention to everything, race hard, and not race as automatons--cool. Sounds like genuine bike racing. I've always had a beef with radios in racing. Safety they provide is one thing, but I think too much of the outcome is in the hands of directors following the race.

Have a nice 4th of July weekend.

Housatonic Hills and other tests

Another hard day of racing hard.

I wasn't too stoked about racing in the monsoon that's parked over New England, but my IF/Lionettes teammates' enthusiasm, and offer of carpooling me to the farthest reaches of CT convinced me to race the Housatonic Hills Road Race today.

And lo and behold, it didn't rain on us at all.

The day got off to an inauspicious start, when I was too weak to tear my new socks packaging off, and get the damn socks out. So Jon Bruno did it for me with a phillips head screwdriver. And then Jon-6th-sense-for-where-a-Starbucks-is-Bruno found a Starbucks right off the exit. So my strength began returning.

It wasn't like most previous races, with a breakaway. Instead, there were many little ones, all beginning with John Hanson's bold attack early in the first lap. He's feeling great these days, and I was pleased as punch to have him up the road with two other riders.

He was out for a while, but after he was caught, I saw Jamey Driscoll go flying around a sharp uphill corner, and hoping to get into a break with him, I sprinted uphill to him, and then went by him and everyone else, and since it was a steep climb, I just kept up the pace figuring someone strong would bridge across to me. I was in luck: no one came across, and that turned out to be convenient, because around the next bend, up this steep climb, the "King of the Mountain 200 meters" sign came into view. So I went full speed ahead, took the KOM, and won a Rudy Project Helmet and shades for my troubles! After that unexpected good fortune, I decided the day would be a success even if I finished last.

The rest of the race was like this. Attack. Ride hard. Get caught. Someone else attacks. Chase. Ride hard. Repeat. Nothing stuck.

With maybe 10 miles left in the 81 mile race, there were about 15 racers left in the field. (Maybe you'd call it a breakaway, at that point?) Anyhoo, Allister from Bikereg went on a solo attack, and as a field, we mostly rode slowly for a while while he got a gap of about a minute. Then we went faster and faster, not content to race for 2nd place. I led over the KOM climb as fast as I could, and got a funny cramp doing it. Not funny ha ha. Funny terrible.

Jamey Driscoll (Rock Racing) killed it, and did the work of eight people chasing him down, with me, (someone I just met and am impressed with his gritty style) Matt Purty, and Anders Newbury, one of the future of cycling Hot Tubes riders lending some help.

As you can count, that's four out of the 15 doing any work...and mostly just Jamey. Although the remaining Bikereg guys had a free pass, with Allister up the road. We caught Allister about 1.5 miles before the finish, and then it was some cat and mouse all the way in. I timed my finish sprint well, but should've chosen to finish on the leeward side of the line, because rounding the bend up the hill to the line, I opened up a lane for a mysterious rider, Peter Hurst, who used my draft, and took the win by almost a bike length. I need to watch out for this guy.

He hadn't helped chase Allister, so it's irritating that he takes the win after a lengthy free ride, but that's racing. Most people weren't chasing, but if I didn't, then either Jamey would have rolled away, or the best I could've hoped for is 2nd place anyway, so I'd say it was worth the effort.

Then Jon Bruno drove me back to NH, while I studied the whole way for my next big test tomorrow on bone and muscle function. I think I did really well on my lab exam last Thursday. It was largely identifying parts, places, regions of the skeleton, tissues in microscopes, stuff like that. Feeling successful, I B-lined from that test to the NH state liquor store to get tequila for celebration margaritas.

We celebrated Fathers Day early. Inspired by TV Diner on New England Cable News, we went to the Gold plate winning Blue Latitudes in Dover on Friday. Lots of food makes me happy. Honestly, given the choice of really good, or really big food, I often go with big. And I went big. (Good, too). After I was already stuffed to the gills, we split a chocolate chip calzone. Just like it sounds--INSANELY GOOD! I don't know why this idea hasn't been duplicated all across the nation, although the fact that it hasn't is better for the national waistline.

Besides helping dad break in his new laptop last week, there isn't much news, since I don't have time for anything else. Even email has been curtailed.

So until next time...keep the rubber side down. "Unless you're wearing a rubber hat", as the ever-witty Bike Snob NYC said.