its a sickness..

Its not even April yet, and I just got these delivered today.  It is indeed a sickness.  Oh yeah, I've already got my cross schedule figured out for the upcoming 2008/09 season, and I've starting booking work travel so that it links all the USGP's together. Sad, sad, sad.  I don't know what else to call it...except  PRO AS HELL!!!! Sweet ass  Dugasts!!! What the hell do I have to be sad about!!!!  32mm, low as hell psi...I cannot WAIT to run that shit!!!!

racing?

K. Rahn in the break.  Photo: www.marcoquezada.com Ok, so I'm gonna play a little catch up here... There has indeed been some bike racing.  There was an NYC central park race in the rain that J. Lo won with Alex Bremer in the break with him.  Karl and I were on the front of the field keeping things together.  It was rainy, it was the first CRCA race, and it was way too easy.  I have no photos, well because it was raining.

Next up....Grant's Tomb Criterium.  I will start by saying I hate this race like no other.  It put on by the Columbia Cyling Team, so I'm happy to enter just to support their team, but I just suck in early March...I've accepted this, and I have moved on.

Karl on the other hand was the star of the day in my book.  He was all over the front of the P12 race, and was in several moves...most noteable was his break that he initiated to launch J.Lo, that ended with them in a 3 man brake for the last 10 laps of the race...only getting caught with 1 lap to go. Props out to the Sakonnet Squad....Koschara has been teachin

g those kids how to bite nails in half, and it shows. 

 

breakity, break, break. Karl and J.Lo rollin. Photo: www.marcoquezada.com

Last was Prospect Park this past Sunday.  It was really cold and windy and the feild was about 50 I'd say.  It was a normal day for me of closing down EVERY FREAKIN GAP that those sissies opened up.  I felt like I was in the wind the whole damn race.  Joao Correia showed up, and it was good to catch up with him.  We had breakfast after, and caught up with his road stories of life with Bissell.  I then took a nap.  and wrenched on some bikes...and took another nap.  Racing at 6AM pretty much wipes you for the rest of the day.

Otherwise....I still can't stop thinking about cross....I know....it's way

too early.  But, I don't care.

SS Cross Love

So we are a long ways from cross season.....so how to bridge the gap between now and then?

We tweak on all the cross stuff that we have(drink beer), buy new stuff(drink beer), have tire and tire pressure discussions(while drinking beer), and for chrissake...we run(rod dixson?). 

So my Single Speed Indy Fab Cross is gettin the love right now.....that's right Campy Record Carbon brake levers....P - I - M - P!!!

Check back soon for the crank and..ehem...WHEELS!

New Links

So maybe you noticed, or maybe you didn't...but I updated my links yesterday while I was waiting for a flight in the DFW airport (yes...that's Dallas...don't ask) so....

Look over to the right there and start clickin'...newest ones are on top...

You'll see some cool bikes from Richard Sachs, Zanconato, DeKerf...etc and of course you will see some great commentary on some blogs I frequent regularly: e-RICHIE (ATMO!) , HUP United (My Cross Team), Embrocation Magazine's blog (Super cool..BUY IT!) ...and of course Belgian Knee Warmers.

enjoy them...I do every day...

BFF 2008 New York Dates Announced

That's right the 2008 Bicycle Film Festival is slated for May 28 - June 1 here in the NYC.

Click HERE for more info on schedule, volunteering etc...

Richard's Night Out...

So we decided to have the the inevitable "boy's night out" situation on Wednesday night....This basically gives us the license to be dicks....hence the name Richard's night out.  (There isn't anyone named Richard by the way...but it seemed more clever than Dick's night out) Now for me, this is like any other night, (since I'm single) The rest of the crew can say all those things that their girlfriend would slap them for....and we can talk about bikes..ALOT without seeing anyones eyes roll.  We mobbed this kick ass Italian place in Williamsburg, called PT,  with a good crew.  Me, Kevin, Karl, Philippe, Eli, Shinji, and Billy...good times, good times.

We had some great wines, and great food...I have to say, I'll def. go there again....I have it notated in my phone as "good date spot". 

Of course that is making two VERY big assumptions:

1. That I convince some poor unassuming girl to actually go out with me. 

2. I don't make a complete ass out of myself, or bore her to death with bike speak before we actually make it to the restaurant.

I've figured something out though....as you get older (me a whopping 34) you realized that you still have to go to work the next day, and that torturous endeavor will pass more  

quickly and with less pain if you get some sleep and aren't still drunk when you wake up in the morning...That's what we get when you have Richard's night out on a frickin Wednesday.

After dinner we hit Zebulon for a beer, and that was bell lap....

Super good time...Richard needs to get out more often....

Oh...and for all those girlfriends that read my blog....everyone actually talked about how much they missed their better half, and about their burning desire to go outlet mall shopping.... for the record.

baby's first bath

That's right....the first scrub on the new stick for the year...

This is how we have to do it here in the NYC. In the bathtub.  The good thing about this situation is that it forces me to clean the bathroom after...WAIT WAIT WAIT....I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking that the only time I clean my bathroom is when I clean my bike...aren't you?  Well...YOU ARE ABSOLUTELY RIGHT!!!!  This could be a contributing factor to my perpetual single-ness...but if you think about....my bathroom probabally stays cleaner as a result.  

Let's face it.  I clean my bike before every race, and after REALLY nasty training rides....so for the most part...I'm cleaning that unit once a week at a minimum!

The downside, is no amount of scrubbing bubbles will completely erase that grease ring....SORRY LANDLORD!  GOOD THING ITS A RENTAL.

Whatever...some people have hairballs in their tub...I have grease boogers...you know...the ones from you rear derailleur jockey pulleys?  I LOVE THOSE!!

Keep it clean...

another weekend gone

bummer...its monday.

I will say that yesterday's ride was as dope as they come on pavement. I rolled solo yesterday for about 4 hours of endurance.  I know there may be some controversey when it comes to ipods and bike riding, but i love mine when i'm riding alone.  guess what....I wasn't wearing a helmet either.HA!  The weather was cold and clear, sunshine, and just a little bit of wind. perfect.

I got some new music, so it was a perfect time to give it a spin....the playlist went something like this:

St. Vincent

Bon Iver

Pink Mountaintops

Black Mountain

That was the new stuff....then into a mix of old reliables with the likes of Shellac, Madvillan, Beasties, M83...blah blah blah.

It was fun, so there.

Tour of New Zealand is in the books!!

Congratulations Kristin....you deserve all the pancakes you can eat.. Full results here.....photos courtesy of www.WomensCycling.net

classics season

I'm gonna start by saying that CYCLING.TV SUCKS A BIG FAT HAIRY ONE!!!!  If someone out there has the inter web and computer know how, I am calling on you to start a competing internet TV channel that can PUT THEM OUT OF BUSINESS!!!

Me, Kevin, and Karl got all excited to watch Het Volk yesterday.  So excited that instead of watching the replay later in the afternoon, we decided to do it up over breakfast and watch the action live.  So that means we all meet at K. Molloy's at 8h30 (in the morning).  We were prepared for whatever....Oatmeal, scones, tons of coffee, and of course Belgian Beer.

So what happened?  Those knackers at cycling.tv must be using an old Commodore 64 as there server, because it crashed.  Basically we saw the last 6k of the race with Gilbert killing it for the win.  

Normally, we would have gotten over it and watched the re-run later in the day, but know the finish is spoiled for us!!! All because of those no talent ass clowns at cycling.tv.  Thanks boys. You suck.

In other news, it was the perfect start to the Classics season...We headed out on the bikes at about noon, "WE" being the Empire boys (my team), to get in some miles in what looked like it was turning into a beautiful day in Manhattan...42 degrees, with just a little wind.  So we all rallied, dressed for what was supposed to be a 46 degree day.  By the time we got over the GWB...there was no sun in sight, and temps clearly dropped.  Oh yeah, and it started SNOWING.   Did we turn around...negatory good buddy.  We rolled on, and the snow subsided, and it was just cold...no big deal.  We did a nice 3 hours into upstate NY, and when we got onto 9w for the final go back into the city....the snow stated coming down so hard we could only see about 100m in front of us, not to mention the nastiest head/cross wind you could imagine.  Now remember. We already got snowed on once, and there was still about 4 inches of the crap on the ground, so the roades were wet...so WE were wet too.  We immediately threw the endurance zone out the window and me, Karl, Kevin, and J.Lo started a paceline out of  shear survival instinct...we did that a good half an hour, and got back to the GWB...oh...yeah...then the sun came out.  It hurt alot...I was really cold...pretty much miserable....it was everything a good ride should be.

photo above courtesy of www.bettiniphoto.net

  

Kristin Armstrong gettin it done

Kristin is kickin ass in the Tour of New Zealand...this 

photo (courtesy of WomensCycling.net) is her winning Stage 3, 125k. full story and results here.   She's in the lead on GC with 2 stages left to go and an 11 second lead....COME ON KRISTIN!!!

Stage 5 is a 7K TT which is tommorow (er..today, tonight...crap these time differences screw with me)   and we know she's got the goods when it come to TT. 

Last stage, Stage 6 is a 40k Crit, and as long as she keeps the rubber to the road, no tme is gettin lost there....

Kristin is cool...she deserves the win, especially after putting up with us jackasses on the Coast Ride...she was even nice enough to fill my bottles one day...hehehehe (thanks for the photo Ben Hughes)

Follow the results here

Keep on keepin' on Kristin!!