Where the hell did my summer go?

Howdy Ho!

It's been ages since I've actually wrote anything worth reading. I think that may be due to the fact that I've done nothing worthy of writing about. My fitness took a work/life stress related nosedive at the end of July and by the time I started coming around again, it was too late. Funny how stress can sap the life right out of you. One day I'm flying, the next I'm dragging ass and I cant do a thing about it. For me it felt like being overtrained. Except at the point in time when it hit me, I was not even close to being over trained. In fact I was approaching my planned peak. Since that didn't go well, I abandoned my racing plans for the rest of the season and decided to concentrate on doing as many officiating gigs as possible.

In the last 3 months the only cycling related note of interest I have is that I broke my 10 year old Indy Fab Crown Jewel beyond repair. The seat tube cracked off above the welds at the bottom bracket. I sent pictures to IF and they told me that it's not a warranty issue. And they were right too. Corrosion from the inside killed my bike. I cant bad mouth IF for this. I never took the seat post out as required for regular maintenance. I couldn't. The seat post has been cold welded into my frame for years. Here's a shot of the damage.



It was such a beautiful bike too. Here's a shot of it in it's glory.



IF offered me a great price on a replacement frame. I've decided to take them up on it, but only after I get a new Latitude/ABRT team edition Cannondale CAAD 9 first. There is an order deadline for those and IF doesn't care when I replace my frame. Given the current financial situation, maybe later next year. Hopefully in time for fall 2009 century season.

After breaking the bike, I really kinda lost interest in training. I didn't have a readily available bike to keep on plugging away and I was too busy to finish building up my Trek2100 as TT bike. 2 weeks after I broke to IF, I did get around to it. It turned out pretty nice and it rolls pretty fast for a budget TT build. I didn't spend a whole lot of money on it. Here's a couple of pictures of my low budget rocket.







For my shakedown ride I stuffed myself into a skinsuit and put on my new Rudy Project Syton TT helmet and headed for a 2 mile stretch of flat road not far from my house. I got in a nice warmup getting there and as soon I as arrived I kicked it into high gear. Wow! Aero is frigging fast. With very little effort I was up to 26+ mph. I was surprised at how easy that was. Of course I couldn't hold that for much longer than 4-5 minutes. The lactic acid in my arms was building up quicker than in my legs. Bah! It doesn't matter. I'm hooked. Aero is free speed and speed is fun! I'll be working with this bike all winter.

In the meantime, I've gotten the junior loaner bike from teammate Doug Milikin. Nobody was using it and he insisted. Thanks Doug! It's an old Team Snow Valley steel Lemond, size 56cm, with a Wound-Up straight bladed carbon fork. I've always wondered about those forks. They're not really blades, but tubes. The low down on them is they were the shiznit back in their day. I'd have to agree. They are very stiff and compliant. They are also the ugliest forks ever. The Lemond as given to me had a mish mash of parts and a Campy 9 speed drive train. None of it worked very well, so I stripped it all down and rebuilt it up with Durace 9 speed take-offs from my Trek and my broke IF. I still have plenty more stuff left over for the Cannondale when it arrives, but I may make the upgrade to 10 speed. Depends on money and how work goes over the winter. I did about 70 miles on it last weekend during a camping trip on the Eastern Shore with my wife. It works fine now, but I do miss the carbon K-Force bars that are still on my IF. Even so, I'll be fine with this ride for the next 6 months until the 'Dale shows up.

Now the bad news. My August and September sloth as cost me 12 added pounds. I'm back up to 210 from a low of 198. That was a real eye opener when I stepped on the scale. I knew I was slacking but I didn't think I'd get it back on that fast. Winter training is starting early this year and I will not be slacking. My focus for next season is to be as light as possible and to be able to crank out the watts. Light is relative for me, as I'm never gonna be a flyweight climber. As a large rider I should be able increase my power to weight ratio high enough to hang on the worst climbs MABRA racing has to offer. I plan to focus on road races and time trails next season as a competitor and work the crits and cyclocross races as an official. My goal is to have my 1st peak in time for Walkersville. That gives me 6 full months from now to lose weight and increase power. The weekend riding on the Shore was the kick I needed. I love riding over there. No traffic, shoulders on 90% of the roads and good road surfaces. It may be mostly flat, but wind is the great equalizer out there as the wide open spaces affords very little in the way of shelter from it.

This year I have worked every race I possibly could with the goal of getting as much experience as possible in the shortest time possible. To be quite honest, I had a great time working all those events on the moto. I'm still having a good time working on the ground at cyclocross too. Hopefully I'll have enough events under my belt to qualify for an upgrade to B level official and B level motor ref. My goal as a motor ref is to work the big pro NRC and UCI races on the national calander.

Well that's enough for now. I'll leave it with this last pic from my last moto ref gig of the year, Bobby Philips Turkey day. Look for more and timely posts here as I turn myself into a science experiment once again in my quest of a Cat 3 upgrade while I'm still in my 40's.

I will be bringing back my beer reviews too. I think I've been thru about 40 different brews since the last brew review. Maybe I'll do a mini update just on those.



Ugg that helmet has got to go. It looks like I'm wearing half a bowling ball on my noodle. Time to look into a modular Shoei. My full face Shoei is looking like its been worn all season by Randy DePuniet. It needs replacing.

Cheers,

FGR