change of schedule.

Well, my life is now turned upside down since I now work from an office in Arlington.  No more noon rides and the commute is challenging.  Riding into work seems to be decently safe, riding over Chain Bridge, while passing all of the cars sitting in traffic.  However, in the evenings, the speed is much higher and I don't have lights, except for one small red blinking light. So, to say the least it's been a bit dangerous.  I decided not to ride until I get some more lights.  To say the least, my training has been pretty much once a week.  I rode to work one day with my backpack loaded down with my laptop and other stuff.  It seemed that I weighed additional 15 lbs.   This past Saturday, I was lucky enough to get about an hour in the afternoon to ride the Goon ride.  It was windy as hell, and I did a good amount of pulling in front of Phil and Ira.  Luckily they were there to pick up the slack when I was depleted and allowed me to recover.  

Today, I tried to get out with the NCVC ride in Arlington from the Italian store, however I got out too late and only found Jim with DCVelo coming back from the ride.  The others were apparently behind him as he said the "geezers" go out about 5 minutes ahead.   Maybe next week I'll make it. 

Anyway, I have to find a better way to ride, I'll also have to leave everything plus a change of clothes at work, so I don't carry 15 lbs each way, though it may be good for me. :)

Longest ride this off season.

Well, since the noon time group decided to do a recovery ride today and I had some extra time on my hands, I decided to skip the ride and go do a Hains Point ride.  This would eventually be a 50 mile ride for me. Yea! It was my longest ride this off season.  I know, you're supposed to put the miles on during the off season, but who has the time? The longest ride typically is on a Saturday or Sunday when I do the Bicycle Place or DC Velo ride plus the extra 10 miles back down the park and back, however this off season, I have yet to have the time to do that.   I have only done one 7am DCVelo ride this year.   So all in all, my rides have been 25 miles or less. (If lucky I wiill do maybe an extra 5-8 miles after the noon ride.)  

I rode down to Hains Point at a brisk pace as I was running late out of the door.  Luckily the wind was with me and I made it down there with about 5 minutes to spare.  We started off slowly for a lap or two, then we picked up the pace a bit.  I took several longer pulls at the front making sure I was getting a good work out.  After the 2nd lap, I started to work on my sprint.  Boy, since I don't really train on my sprints, I don't seem to have the intense power anymore on my sprint.   I think my endurance on the sprint has gotten better, but the speed isn't quite there anymore.  I guess it won't matter much as I can work on my sprints and quickly regain that form.  Anyway, I had a few good sprints and was fairly tapped out for the last one.  The wind was blowing hard enough so that I couldn't catch Alex and I let off knowing that I still had to ride back.   

My ride back was pretty uneventful, though the wind was in my face most of the time.  I was almost home and saw that I was about a few miles below 50 miles so I decided to turn back down to the park to do a little bit of the rolling hills.  It was a good work out and on the last hill coming back, my left thigh decided to cramp,  good enough.  I made it back while rubbing out my cramp.  I'm a bit sore and tired now, but I'll try to make it out tomorrow, unless the weather prevents me from doing so. 

Total time: 2hrs and 38 minutes

Average HR: 158

Average Speed: 19 mph

Average Cadence: 77 rpm

Calories: 1778 calories burned. 

Since, I'll be taking on a new job next week in Arlington, VA, my riding schedule will totally change.  If you have any input on training rides in Arlington, let me know. 

Team Astana not invited to the Tour de France.

The recent announcement that Team Astana was not going to be invited to the Tour de France is mind boggling.  Team Astana was already excluded from the Giro d Italia. This is a slap in the face of cycling.  Sponsorship of cycling is hard enough to come by already, and now this announcement.  Alberto Contidor will not be able to defend his title.  Even with new team management, new team members, Astana will still not be able to participate.  What this is saying is that the sponsors are responsible for the team's actions.   Actually it is the total opposite.  The teams solicit sponsorships.  Sponsors may dictate rules, however it is up to the team management and members to provide integrity to the sport.  

I guess there are plenty of teams,  (I say that facetiously, as I know that this year has been difficult  year for the pro teams on getting sponsorships) which the Tour de France will invite, however are they the most competitive? This may be an interesting year for the Tour.  Will the reputation of the Tour be lost because of the lack of  qualified competitiors?  Will the Tour de France not be considered the elite event anymore?  Only time will tell.  

I for one, can't fathom that the ASO would not invite some of the top riders like Contador, Leipheimer, Kloden, Rubiera, Horner and the upcoming riders like  Rajkovic.   This is also a slap in the face of Bruyneel, who was so dominant in management of pro cycling racing.   I say give the management some respect.   I feel sorry for the managers like Sean Yates and Viatcheslav Ekimov.  These guys were well respected racers in history.   

I guess the ASO is trying to make an example of Team Astana.  Who would have known?  Why not exclude Team Mobile now Team High Road, I guess it's because T-Mobile dropped out of the sponsorship?  Was that done to appease the ASO?  and was it planned with the ASO so that they could ban any other teams who kept the existing sponsors?  Are there any ethics and integrity anymore in pro cycling?  

Is Team Astana going to survive?  Will there be any late minute shuffles in teams to take away the top riders of Astana? Would you want to be on Astana now??
Will a new tour in the Americas' be born soon? Notice.. Americas (Canada, Mexico, US,  Somewhere in South America?)  Should the ASO allow  Team Astana, however put stricter regulations on doping testing??

Happy Valentines Day and Enjoy your eating lots!

Wusses.. all of them.

Yep.. you guessed it.  Everyone wussed out today.  It was a chilly and windy day (26 degrees at noon), the email went out early that our leader would not be riding today.  I sent out an email about 11:30am to see if anyone would be riding.  Even the hardy Ad had to depend on Paul to ride.  Rayman apparently said he would be riding in his basement.   Paul's excuse was that he didn't see the email message in time to go.  Well, excuses, excuses, it was a Monday anyway, when during the season it's typically an off day.  I guess we're into our season already.  As I've said, the off season is no longer the off season. 

As for what I did?  I decided not to ride thinking I might ride in the evening on my rollers.  Well, guess what... I didn't.  Instead, I took my children to their hockey practice and one had a game.  So, by the time I got back from all of this, I didn't feel like riding in the late evening.  Instead, I had couple glasses of wine and relaxed watched a movie with the wife.   Well, so much for the training. 

Miles put in today: the Big 0, though I did do some gym work this morning. 

I keep reading everyone's blogs and email ride recaps on the weekend ride... Well, I'm damn envious of everyone.  I've get to wake up at the same time everyone else does, however instead of getting my riding gear on, I'm pushing my children along in getting them out of bed and quickly getting dressed for their hockey games.   Then I do the hour long ride to the other rinks.  Every once in a while, I'm passing a biker on the road riding to their group ride.  We'll hockey will stop by mid to late March, then of course it's soccer.  So I don't really know when I'll be able to do any of the usual group rides.  Yep, I'd love to do a Sugarloaf ride (80 miles or so).  I haven't done any long rides this winter, though, this year I have actually ridden hard during the off season.  I'm supposed to be building my base.  Well, that doesn't seem like it will happen.  So the long road races will continue to be my weak events.   

I guess the good thing is that I'm spending time with my children, cheering their team on and watching them progress.  It's pretty amazing on their growth in abilities from the start of the season til now.  I guess I'll have to live through their accomplishments now, since I get limited time for myself.  C'est la Vie. 

I think my schedule for work will be changing soon... so that will put an even weirder spin on my training or lack of it. 

Ride hard and ride on. 

Picture Day.

I wonder what type of tires they used on this?

You also have to be really trusting of your partner on this!

Look familiar? This can happen to you if you piss off the Police. Follow the rules of the road.

Tuesday Ride.

Well, the usual riders turned out for the 12:30 Thrasher ride. I immediately knew it would be a fast ride today because Simon showed up. We were missing James, Jay, and Ray. Laurie Marshall, Bryan Burns and Tracy also joined us. We were not joined by the Mayor's entourage. It was a cloudy day, the ground was damp and contrary to my rules (I'm not supposed to ride on wet days), we all embarked on time. I chatted with Laurie for a bit, noting that this was going to be a fast ride. Well, the chatting continued with everyone and it seemed that we were going to just have an easy ride. So I rode slowly away at my own pace. I couldn't believe that everyone would want to ride that pace the whole ride. We regrouped on Seven Locks/Bradley, then again, I rode away slowly and turned up Kentsdale and up the hill. That's when things changed. The group caught me before the turn onto Newbridge. It was amazing, things went from slow to furious. We continued that pace, dropping Tracy and Bryan and Shawn somewhere along the way, before Clara Barton. Down Clara Barton, we hammered, Paul apparently did not follow us but instead rode down MacArthur Blvd. I was breathing harder than I have all winter. Some of my pulls were ineffective as I could not pass Simon or Randy. I finally dropped back and let the others rotate through. Laurie happened to do that as well, so I didn't feel too badly. I just couldn't recover. Well, Ad of course was the instigator again, pulling through above our pace. We all needed recovery, coasting back to the start. All in all a really good day. Tomorrow is the hill day, which I don't think I'll be able to make as I have a meeting at 11:30. We'll see if I can get back in time.

One last note: Rest in Peace Sheldon Brown. You've helped me over the years work on my bike. I didn't even need to buy a book on how to service my bike. I'm sure you've been an inspiration to many in the cycling community. Sheldon's Cycling site His Journal