Off Topic Post.

Since I'm involved with Technology all of the time, there are sometimes some real cool things out there.
For example, here are a few things which I think I'll be using more in the future:

Palm Pre: Palm Pre Link This is going to be the iPhone killer. For those who don't believe me, don't say I didn't tell you.

Hulu: Hulu This is the next way to watch videos. For Free!!

As far as more cool bike stuff... we'll I'd rather have have the heart, lungs, legs and recovery ability which can just out power the rest of them at any whim. I don't know how the old 35+ Chuck Hutch does it, however powering at 28 MPH at Hains Point with the wind at your face, dragging around a time trial biker while dropping the rest of us is fricken impressive. Now, if I had his legs all of you would be toast. Forget the nice wheels, forget the power meters, I'd just drop you like it's nothing. Oh by the way, I hear he's leaving Battley Harley and joining NCVC. :) We could use someone with his power on our Masters 35+ team.

Trade Zone not!

I rode almost 4 days straight this past week, even while having a cold. You know the same one everyone has. Stuffed nose, sinus pain, mucus everywhere including your lungs. Well, even with all this, I was planning to make a show of Trade Zone. I thought I didn't have any real conflicts with the race, except the weather! Well, not so, our neighbor asked us to attend a local fund raising event the night before. You know, the one which suckers you in to buying something you don't need. Well, it was for the kids. Another bunch of money down the drain for something your kids don't really need or want. Could have been a down payment on a new frame which my team wants me to get. Well, that's not going to happen. Well, it was enjoyable anyway, with a few glasses of wine and appetizers. I actually got home early enough to get some sleep. I awoke at 6:30 am and looked out the window... well a light dusting of snow. It was wet however, could it dry in time for Trade Zone. I went to my computer and low and behold, the cancellation emails had already gone around. Well, no riding for me. I took the rest of the day relaxing and watching a movie with my wife and children, then on with the end of the season hockey parties. I'm getting tired of hockey... time to hopefully focus on my racing. I was looking forward to racing as a team this year as in the past it was typically just me riding solo. If I wasn't in a break, there was little chance I could bridge the break or have several work with me to chase down the break. ABRT did a great job last year at making sure no one would catch their leaders. TZ was going to be a good experiment for our team. Many of us have ridden on different teams last year and this year, well it hopefully would be different. Well, no luck on Sunday... so I may not get to do TZ this year as I think the next couple of weekends are already scheduled with hockey events again. I'm registered for Walkersville as well as Jeff Cup. We'll see how we do. It is interesting on how quickly the fields are filling up this year even with the entry fees so high.

Castelli Pioggia Winter Glove part 2

I told you that I would provide you a review of the gloves I recently purchased. Well they came in time for me to test them out on a couple of short 1 hour rides. My first impression when I received them were that they were decent looking, though much more bulky than my older gloves. Yep, these were like ski gloves The glove's liner is fleece and feels nice and soft when you put your fingers inside. I got a large and they fit like med-large, which was perfect for me as I didn't want alot of bulk at the finger tips. Like any decent glove, it's warm if there is extra space for trapping air. The Pioggia has a bit of bulk with the internal fleece glove lining and the outer windproof shell. It was about 25 degrees out and my hands didn't feel overly warm nor did they feel cold. I did sweat in them, however because it's fleece, the glove didn't feel wet, except when I took them off. At that time it pretty much was like pulling your gloves inside out. There is no stitching to keep the fingers in place with the outer shell. I guess the good thing is that you could pull it out to dry quicker and you can wash just the lining part.
My over all opinion is that this glove provides good warmth but at a cost of bulkiness. I actually prefer my cheap Novara gloves as they are much thinner and are decently warm when riding in 30+ degree weather. So my Pioggia gloves will be used when I'm a spectator for cold events and when it's below 25 degrees otherwise my holey Novara gloves are just fine.

Recap at the Point: Hard ride, for the most part extremely fast. My ass is in pain. Decent sprints and thanks to my teammate Pete, he led me out at the right time to take the sprint. I'm in no sprinting shape yet, however it was a good feeling to know it's still there. I kind of died after the second time we sprinted and the other guys continued to go hard at 12:58. I was on my warm down lap getting ready to ride back to work. However, I have to say, I'm impressed by all of the power out there so early in the season. I'm wondering if I should sandbag and focus on peaking in the later summer instead, when everyone's burned out. I think all of this social networking through these blogs and listservs are really creating a stir out there. Everyone is strong so early!

Blown!

How many of the blogs over the last couple of days have blow in the title?

Hurray! I've got in 5 straight days of riding! This is a record. Of course, how many hours each was it? Many of the days it was about 40 minutes a couple of days it was a bit over an hour. So all in all, my riding has been fairly productive in getting my heart and lungs in shape.

The last few days I went down to Hains Point. Yesterday Jesse Leifert, pretty much summed it up on his blog Le Amateur Domestique. Yes, it was windy and the Harley and DCVelo boys just made it look too easy. I went around a couple of laps with them and decided to drop after the final turn, where they were supposed to recover. No.. they decided to teach some of us a lesson and hammered away.

Today, I arrived at around 12:35 after a meeting downtown and while getting dressed, watched 2-Speed Chuck and Bryan Butts hammer away together. After I was ready a minute or so, I joined a small group going at an easy pace. I stayed at the end of the pack not trying to cause any commotion. I finally moved up front to see James "Giacomo" Belora leading the pack, he said he had already been going around several times already getting blown. The pace was a bit slow for me so I picked up the pace and then around the curve, bam! I got hit by this incredible wind gust! It almost stopped me in my tracks. It felt like I was starting to climb a steep hill with all that resistance. I just kept rotating my feet around and around, trying to keep a good cadence going. Around to the front side where the wind was assisting instead of hindering me, I picked the pace up again. Nice and steady with good speed. Then again on to the back side, this time I upped my cadence to around 85-90 rpm. It felt easier and I was moving around 16 MPH. Then I hear this cranking sound and whoosh...here comes Chuck and Bryan going around me like I was standing still. They were probably going at an 18 to 20 MPH clip. There wasn't anything I could do. I couldn't suck wheel because they gapped me quickly for me to react. All I'm saying is that I don't know how they can keep up that pace and power...I was just too damned amazed at their continued effort. I can tell that these guys are going to cause some real pain out there this year.

Castelli Pioggia Winter Glove

I broke down today as I couldn't pass up a good deal. I ordered a pair of Castelli Piogga gloves in a large today. I'm hoping that they work well. I've seen these in the past in shops, however they are damn expensive. Typically over $60 for them. I needed a new pair of winter gloves as my other winter gloves are full of holes and they don't really keep me that warm.
The Castelli Piogga gloves are supposed to be water proof as well, so those cold rainy races early in the season should be a good test for them.

I'll let you know in a future blog post how these rate.

This was my first week where I rode more than twice. I rode Sunday for about 30 minutes. I rode at noon yesterday for about 40 minutes. And today, I rode for an hour during the hill ride in Arlington. The Coppi guys invited this kid (26 yrs old) mountain biker to come out and ride with us. He shredded us on the sprints and up the hills pretty badly. My heart rate was pinging over 180 for a good portion of the ride. I basically blew up one time up a hill. I was pretty satisfied though with my riding considering I haven't ridden more than once a week for the 4 weeks or so. So much for putting the miles in off season. We are in season once again. Let the races begin! Most of the riders with me were definitely in better shape than I. The suffering was good and I need to do more of it.
I'm planning to ride in to work more often now, unless it becomes damn cold again.

Big Kahunas and racing as a Master.

Here's an email I received recently as we were emailing about a long ride on the weekend. It would have been something I would have loved to do.... however a 4 to 5 hour ride is something I very rarely ever get to do. I think I rode once last year to Sugarloaf Mountain from Beach Drive (about 80 miles), of course I didn't ride with a bunch of hard core racers, just some fit weekend warriors. I did much of the pulling though. I got home and ate a whole lot of pasta and food, took a nice long shower and passed out on the couch trying to watch some bad rerun of TV shows.

My response to the ride was that I didn't think I could go.. however, during my creation of the email I thought of it more and realized I couldn't make it because of my children's sporting events and that I would be attending a evening function with my wife and had to be energetic for the whole event, which I probably wouldn't be if I rode for 5 hours. And of course, as out of shape I'm in, no riding for the past couple of weeks, with all of the poor weather and other stuff I have to do... this was one of the responses:


"You guys are pathetic. You need to let the family know who is The
Boss. Last Sunday I did the cyclocross race in the morning (placed
xxth), got home, had some lunch, then went back out and rode for
another hour since it was 65 degrees. Wife and children completely
indifferent to my absence. Returned home, kicked back on couch,
watched soccer then Super Bowl. King for A Day, as it is every day at
my house."

Well he's is the man...the "king" in my book. If you can do that every day... well he/she must have it good. Most of us in the real world don't have this luxury. I know some of the Seniors can do that cause they still have no responsibilities... or they just don't have a life. Would I trade my life to be able to have the ability to ride 5 hours? then go home watch a movie, then sit and watch a football game in the emvening? Probably not... though I do dream of that every once in a while.
Have fun this weekend everyone. I'll be having my own fun, hopefully not thinking about you.

GamJams Review: Handlebar and Stem.

I few years back I changed out my stock Bontrager aluminum handlebars for some carbon ones. Which one did I choose? Well it was the FSA K-Wing Bars. I got them used from a local racer who went pro and got a good deal on them. I saw a few guys who had the bars and they really liked them. So I decided to try them out. I went on a search for a carbon stem as well and picked up one off of E-bay for a good price. I picked up a Bontrager Race XXX lite carbon stem in a 130 mm length. After a year, I decided to try a shorter stem and bought one in 120mm. It felt a bit better as I think I was reaching too far. BJ Basham professionally measured me and told me that I should probably get a shorter stem 110mm and move the seat backwards another couple of centimeters. I haven't picked up my stem yet, which an old teammate will be selling me. I really like the stem as it is beefy, stiff, and light. The carbon bars, and stem both absorb and dampen vibrations. I don't think I notice too much difference from my aluminum bars and stems. The major difference is the flat top of the bars which is pretty comfortable and the sloping area before the brake hoods. It was designed to make it a bit more comfortable and provide more room. I think the best thing I received by switching is all of the riders looking at the "bling" Yes, they are cool to look at. The stiffness is probably a bit stiffer than the aluminum bars which I like. The weight is probably similar to aluminum bars. So all in all I have enjoyed the bars.

My recommendation? Well bars are bars. As long as they are light and stiff. Then they should work. The FSA K-Wings are recommended for their flat tops, cutout above the brake hoods for comfort, ong as they are light and stiff. Then they should work. The FSA K-Wings are recommended for their flat tops, cutout above the brake hoods for comfort and their cool look. The bontrager Race XXX lite stems are definitely a winner for me. They are light, durable, stiff and work well and I don't have any slippage holding onto the FSA K-wing bars. Oh yes.. the FSA have a rougher area around the stem area so that they don't have any issues slipping.