Blogger's envy.

Damn,  Doesn't it suck when you can't ride when everyone else is  riding and telling you about all of their fun experiences.  The good thing is that I know the guys I'm riding with during the week are the same ones causing the issues on the weekends (with the exception of the junior riders who are still in school during the lunch time) . 

Well, hats off to Super Dave, Ryan McKinney, Ad and Nick Bax, Bryan Vaughn, James Wagner, Joe Baremore, Adam Fung, Russ Langley, Shannon Morgan, Nick Mulder, Jose Ecobar (who crashed), Cliff Gray, Mike Esmonde, and others who were able to ride today cause suffering for others and were named in many of the blogs today.  It's always fun to read about the ride recaps, I just wish I could have been there. 

Well, my kids hockey games took over my weekend as well as my daughter's birthday party.  At least it was fun for them today.  Same thing tomorrow... more hockey games, plus the "Miites on Ice".  My daughter's team will be playing in between one of the Capital's end of period shows, as usual it will be fun to watch.  So again... no riding for me.  

My substitution tonight was a nice bottle of Cabernet and a nice BigNY Strip Steak, baked potato, and salad.   Eat your hearts out!

Off topic about web browsers.

I can't stand these websites which are not conforming to standards. Yes, most of them are designing their websites for the crappy Microsoft Internet Explorer 6.0 browser. If you're using that browser, you've probably have viruses/worms/trojans which you don't know about.

I've been a long time supporter of non Microsoft browsers. I started off with Mosaic in the early 90's then that morphed into Netscape browser then Netscape developed Communicator which was a great leap into being able to see the native HTML and WYSWYG (What you see is what you get) . That's when I started to understand the underlying HTML. Unfortunately, companies started adopting Internet Explorer because Microsoft started bundling their web browser with the operating system and giving it away for free. Netscape finally decided to give their browser away for free, however it was too late as "Corporate America" started developing applications internally with Microsoft's easy to use FrontPage application (that product actually was a decent product by Microsoft) . Unfortunately, because of the built in functionality of Active Server Pages (Microsoft's proprietary format of Java Servlets) within FrontPage and the fact that companies were building websites off of the non-scaleable and insecure IIS (Internet Information Server, IE became a standard for companies, thus pushing out the open standards base of development of websites. Netscape's browsers no longer worked with many of the websites because of their customizations to support ASP. Down goes Netscape. At the same time other browsers were appearing, however each one had the same issues as Netscape. Netscape's browser was finally was sold off to AOL who basically neglected to continue solid development for it. IE was King. That's when the hackers/virus developers started to take advantage of all of the IE vulnerabilities. All though out my time with browsers, I've always looked for a substitute for IE. IE was my standard browser too, but I continued to test out the other browsers like open-source ones like Mozilla, which became Firefox, Konquerer for Linux, Opera, Safari and the ones for the Palm OS. In 2002, I was 95% converted to Opera as that was the fastest browser developed. IE was dog slow, Firefox was close behind, however had issues on what direction it would take. I stuck with Opera for years however when java scripting became much more prevalent and now Web2.0 (Javascripting/CSS/XML) , many sites didn't work properly because of their affinity to support only two browsers: IE6 and Firefox. Yea! for Firefox. Bad for Opera because many sites started doing browser detection, thus when Opera was detected it either sent the browser to a page not supported by your browser and upgrade to IE or Firefox. In the case of Yahoo, they did the same, however Opera designed a work around but it still doesn't work well because of the constant code changes Yahoo performs. There's a customization inside their application which is programed for a Firefox bug and that wreaks havoc with Opera. Well, I now use 3 browsers, Firefox, Opera and IE7. I use Firefox 2.x for 95% of my web browsing as it works, Opera when I want to test out the speed of their new beta releases (I really want to go back, however because of the Yahoo issue I'm forced not to) There are lots of new features they have released go here to download a beta copy and read more about their development. I use IE7 when it's the last resort. (many sites don't work properly with IE7 because they IE7 is a bit more standards based and many web sites don't detect IE7 yet. I'd definitely recommend that you upgrade to IE7 if you have IE6 still. IE7 is much faster and more secure. Anyway that's my rant for the day. The more people who move away from IE the better. Support Firefox or Opera. Opera Mini is now also becoming the standard for cell phones. Until Microsoft develops a fast, secure and open standards compliant browser, it will be my last choice. The same goes for Microsoft's new OS... Vista.. I'm not upgrading! Windows XP pro works for me and Vista doesn't give me much more, plus it's full of bloat. Microsoft's next OS after Vista is supposed to be much more efficient without all of the bloat. Maybe I'll convert to Ubuntu Linux soon.... I've tried it and it works easily for someone who is a bit technical, thought for the general public, it still has some ways to go till it's stupid proof.

Thanks for listening.

Sufferfest continued...

We'll the hill ride today was as expected. I got dropped up Brickyard and decided to finish climbing it and ride back down and catch the rest of the group on MacArthur Blvd. I thought I was getting my legs back as I huffed and puffed up Anglers and kept up on Great Falls. Then it went boom. When Brickyard got steep, my legs just didn't have any power left. I stood up hoping that gravity would help, however, the cranks barely moved. It felt like I was carrying another 100 lbs. I slowly made it to the top and turned back around a bit dejected as I was hoping that I was starting to get back into shape. Oh well. I need more mileage and I'm thinking of giving up on the weight workout as my legs were again sore today. The good thing is that the rain was early and the roads were completely dry by noon and the temperatures were still in the 60's, however the breeze was a bit swirling. I'm hoping by the early next week, I'll be back in form.

Fellow racers and health issues.

Yesterday, I was told by a friend about several auto-bicycle accidents. Fellow racer, Mark Sommers of DC Velo, was injured in an accident in Florida. Apparently he got pretty banged up, with broken bones (back or neck?) and was in the hospital for the past week. Joe Baremore of DC Velo also got in an accident and apparently trashed his bike, though physically, he apparently is okay.

This is a reminder to me that accidents can happen and do. Thank God, I haven't been in an auto accident with a car in a long time. I got run into a curb when I first started racing. (about 18 years ago). My brand new Shimano 600/Ambrosia wheels were trashed and luckily, everything else was okay and I rolled into the green space between the curb and sidewalk. The lady who hit me continued to drive away. In those days a new set of Shimano 600/Mavic MA40's wheelset cost me another $50-80 bucks at max. (I don't remember now). Now it would cost me over 500 bucks to get a replacement set. If I had to replace my carbon wheelsets... well, it would be in the range of $1,500-$2,000. Anyway, bikes can be replaced, your body is different. It will take months or years or even can end your racing hobby if you are severely injured. I don't know what Mark's going through, however I wish him well and hope that he heals quickly. I've always been impressed with his power. In a recent conversation with him, I also found out that he had a hip replacement previously. That impressed me even more that he's at such a high level of performance and overcoming his hip replacement.

Other health issues which I recently heard about can sideline you like back problems, saddle sores, or the dreaded Pudendal nerve entrapment (PNE). Hopefully my fellow racers will be able to get back on and ride again soon. Bottom line, take a break if you need to, listen to your body. Racing will still be there when you are able to get back into it.

Ride safely.

Joe Gibbs

Sorry Redskins fans, I read this morning that Joe Gibbs will be retiring again. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan and have been ever since I was about 7 years old. I've never really liked the "Skins" even though they have been my home city team. It's probably because of the rivalry between the teams and that over the years. I've seen some fair weather Skins fans who cheer for who ever is best. Bottom line if you're a fan, stick by your team through the good times and bad. I have a lot of respect for true "Fans".

Even though I don't like the Skins, there are individuals on the Skins team, I have had a lot of respect for. Joe Gibbs is one of them. He has always exemplified a man with great moral values and a true leader. I don't think I've ever seen him showing poor sportsmanship or a had anything negative to say about anyone. Hats off to Joe and I wish him the best in retirement and with his family. He's truly a great man and the Skins are lucky to have him for so many years.

Go Dallas!

Coming back from vacation: Sufferfest

I can now say that it's harder coming back from a 2 1/2 week vacation that it is coming out of a 5 month long layoff. Why is this so??? Well, you get immediately back to where you were supposed to be and others have the expectation that you're at the same level of fitness.
Case and point: Yesterday was my first day back. I still had the lingering effects of a head cold, couple that with soreness/stiffness in my ankle from gout, I still decided to participate in the Trasher noon time ride . Oh yeah, my speedo/heartrate/cadence monitor is still broken, so I'm riding blind without any statistics. Well, off we go. Since this was a Monday ride, it should be a easier pace as many probably worked hard over the weekend. I found the pace suited me just fine, until we found ourselves in Potomac. That's when the ride started to wear on me. I discovered that I'm way out of shape and that I was having difficulty keeping pace up the longer hills. I drifted towards the back and let the rest of the group rotate through, while I hung on at the back. This continued to happen all through out the ride and made it a more bearable ride for me, especially when we started down Clara Barton Parkway. Well, I made it, thought my legs were definitely tired. We got to the light at Goldsboro and River and Paul made a remark saying that my legs were fresh and I would take the climb up Goldsboro. You know, no one gives you a break when you come back from being off. They just expect that you're in the same condition. Well, I just ignored the remark and kept pace at the back, up the hill, feeling the burn. Well, so far so good. I made it back without being dropped and not totally out of breath. My lungs didn't burn either. It was about 70 degrees... I don't know if the same would be true in 20-30 degree weather. The only effect I felt was that my back was a bit sore and tight.

Today was a bit different. When I mounted my bike at noon, I felt the saddle soreness. I went to the gym this morning and did a quick leg workout. I'm not using any real guidelines except for listening to my body. I did several sets of squats with medium weight (135-185lbs) and did a few sets of leg presses. Moving from 135-310 lbs. I also did a small bit of core work as well. I'm not going to use the Nick methodology... it seemed crazy for me as I was sore as crap afterwards... Of course I may be just getting used to weight lifting now. I rode the noon ride again today, and we seemed to have a slightly faster pace today and I rotated through for 75% of the ride till we got to the middle of Clara Barton Parkway. I started to feel the twinge of cramps coming on, so I backed off a bit and hung on to the back. Out of the parkway and up the final hill on Goldsboro, I was pretty much defeated. My legs were heavy and I couldn't muster much more. Tomorrow will be a different story. I'm sure I'll get dropped on the hill ride and I'm not looking forward to that. I've got my old speedometer back on my bike and of course the magnet kept slipping on the spokes. I tried to manually adjust the sensor while I was riding and caught my finger in the spoke before arriving at our meeting point. Ouch... I tore a chunk of skin off of my finger, luckily it stopped bleeding about 5 minutes later. Stupid move, don't ever adjust your sensor while riding. I rode with the speedo off the whole way as I found out later the magnet was what was slipping and it wasn't the sensor placement.

I'll be sore tomorrow, I'm sure of it. The biggest difference on coming back from a 5 month layoff versus a 2 week layoff is that on a 5 month layoff, you typically ride by yourself a bit more till you have the courage of riding with an elite group. You're program to get back into shape is more gradual where as on a 2 week layoff, you're thrown back into the fire right away and everyone is expecting you at the same fitness as before. Give me 3-4 weeks of hard training and I'll get back into shape after a 5 month layoff. It hurts as badly or more, however nobody is expecting you to be in peak shape.

By the way, I don't understand Nick Mulder's blog.... Quote: "I guess its different racing with juniors than with the 1/2 guys. Eventhough junior races in europe are harder." I guess Nick's calling our 1/2 riders weenies...hehe. (First of all, Nick, stay in school, use the spell check and capitalization properly. (Even though ..... Europe). Then, Nick remarks about having issues with overpowering his cranks at Murad where the "Hulk" put so much power into his drive train that the crank arms fell off. And of course, Nick wants to best Lance on a one on one race. Nick, you're my hero... I'll be cheering you on in the races, unless I'm there with you, then, I'll be wondering if I'll be able to out sprint you at the end.

One last thing...on our ride we experienced a guy who obviously was having a bad day. He past us where there were two lanes on each side at the overpass of the Beltway on Bradly lane with his horn blaring. Of course we caught up with him at the light at Seven Locks Road and had a few choice words with him. He yelled at us for riding in two lines. I remarked that it shouldn't even have mattered because there were two lanes and he could pass us safely. Of course, he said that we had no right to do that. I just told him that was obviously he's an angry man. (maybe his wife yelled at him today or he was having a hard time at work, or simply he has no life) I chuckled as I remembered that I was riding and having a good day. I guess I probably didn't do the right thing as my motto is to "Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty every day". Maybe, I should have tried to make his day some how and he would be kind to cyclists next time around... Oh well. You live and learn.

Time off...Great way to start off the New Year!

Well... I'm back. It's January 6, 2008 and I haven't even taken a look at my bike. It's been now over 2 weeks since I've been on a bike. I haven't worked out or done much physically, except for a couple days of skiing. I've heard that time off the bike is good for rest and rejuvenation. I usually take the whole winter off and suffer in the late spring to get back in shape. This year, I'm hoping it will be a little bit different. Tomorrow if all things align perfectly, I'll be riding.
Now for things which will cause it not to align properly....

Well, the health issue is a big problem. Before I left, I caught some kind of cold which continued to linger all through my vacation. It really sucked as I was congested, coughing a lot and hocking up all sorts of lungers to try to clear my throat and lungs. My voice went a bit hoarse and my ears were all clogged up when I flew and went up and down the mountains during the travels. Altitude changes exacerbates the cold. Each night during my vacation, I think I got about 4 hours of sleep. I kept coughing or snoring so that my wife would poke me to turn over. Well, I always said paybacks are hell. She apparently caught the cold the last few days of our vacation too. Of course all of our children had during our vacation as well, some worse than others. I'm back now and things seem to have almost cleared up. I still have some lingering congestion and thick mucus in my nose/throat. Gross. I promise not to blow my nose while I do a group ride.

The other health issue I have is a constant battle against the dreaded gout. It apparently is a hereditary disease which attacks young men in their early 30's. I handed this unfortunate card. Of course, I've been told it's treatable by changing your diet and getting on medicine (Allopurinol) We'll I'm not going to give up all of those delicious things such as goose fois gois, beer, mushrooms, caviar, red meats, and other alcoholic beverages. These foods are all high in purines which cause uric acid production. Gout is an inflammatory disease some what in the arthritis family. When it swells up it feels like you've broken your joints or pulled a muscle or strained a ligament badly. I have it attack my ankles or knees most often, I don't know if my back problems are also linked. Either way it sucks to have this disease, however I take allopurinol to reduce the risks, however it's definitely not 100% as I get about 6-10 attacks a year. Most are mild where if I catch it early I take a bunch of ADVIL's and hopefully it reduces the swelling quickly enough that attack is limited to only a couple of days and with mild pain. The times it sucks, I basically limp around for a couple of weeks and the pain is like you've broken your bones.

This past week, it attacked my right ankle again. Luckily or unluckily, it was on vacation. I caught it early enough and my ankle is just a bit stiff, a little of swelling and pain. Hopefully by tomorrow it will be a very small inconvenience.

I'm still not sure what caused the attack, except that I wasn't riding. Apparently, I've been told that sweating is a way your body gets rid uric acid. I did do a bit of drinking the week during the holiday season and a lesser amount during the trip. I did eat nicely every night. Let's see...
Prime Rib, Filet Mignon, Seared Tuna, King Crab Legs, Snow Crab, Oysters, Duck, Fish, Sushi ... the one thing I did miss was a good lamb chop or rack. (That's one of my favorites which I didn't find on the menu where I went this past week). Nice bottle of wine about every night, a few nights with the usual Grey Goose and sodas. So all in all, I don't think I over did anything on vacation.

The trip was a wonderful learning experience for myself and my family. We started in Las Vegas and drove past the Hoover Dam, went to the Grand Canyon, but didn't do much there except for stopping at every scenic view and staying overnight. Zion National Park was incredible with it's views and we hiked several of the trails. It was exceptionally beautiful, more so than the Grand Canyon in my opinion. We then headed out to Park City, UT after a couple of days in Zion. Park City has changed so much since my previous stay about 18 years ago. The city has exploded in it's development and no longer really looks like an old mining town. It's full of new multi-million dollar housing developments and condo's. In fact on top of Deer Vally Mountain, we were able to get a tour of this home: Click Here and Here. Pretty damn incredible and crazy! It would be a nice place to stay for a week or so, with friends... so who's with me??? (WWM) . Anyway, Park City's is becoming a much more glitzy place and has lost some of it's old silver mining town heritage. Deer Valley however is living up to it's reputation with great food and service. I however prefer the traditional ski bum's attitude about finding an inexpensive place to stay and skiing the hardest, steepest and deepest powder slopes... The groomed slopes is for non-skiers. Though getting older and traveling with a family, it's nice to be pampered like what you get at Deer Valley.

Anyway, we spent several days at Park City, visited the Olympic Park and watched the ski jumpers practice the 70 meter jump. Pretty cool to be able to sail so long in the air. The videos inside the Museum was also really well presented about the 2002 Salt Lake Games and the athletes involved.

After Park City, we headed back to Las Vegas to finish out our vacation. We spent two days lounging around the heated pool, hot tub, (large aquarium in the middle of the pool with sharks and other fish and a slide/tube which went through the aquarium.), and attending many of the shows in town. I guess, we did the family stuff and not much gambling, drinking and chasing women which I had experienced in the past. We took the red eye home and I have to say that my kids really did well traveling, even though our plane was delayed because of another delayed flight which had our crew on it.

All in all it was enjoyable and a bit tiring. I'm looking forward on getting on the bike and riding.
Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow.