Holy Hanna thank God it's over...

I mean, le Tour de France of course. It's been a week or so since the race has been over, and now my life can turn back into a more normal pace of things. I say this, because being a cyclist, people seem to think that you are going to know the ins and outs of Lance Armstrong's life probably better than the man himself does. Of course, I know lots of information about the man, including how he was doing in the race on a day by day basis, but that doesn't mean I want to discuss it at every single turn. No! It does not. I love bicycle racing probably more than any sport going out there (except maybe shuffleboard), but damn folks, leave me the Hell alone when you want to know something about Armstrong. But of course, since the folks asking me these questions are more likely to be NASCAR fans, or would more likely spend time driving down the road throwing bottles at guys who ride bikes, I guess I can oblige them, and answer their questions. Maybe it'll save me a bottle to the back of the head later on down the road. But then again, probably not. I actually do like to tell these folks about bike racing, it's just that, they only care about it, well most of them, because there is an American kicking French ass in France's hometown race. And since France didn't really support us in the war with Iraq, most of the stupid ass rednecks hate the French now, just for that reason, even though they have no idea why they didn't support the US in the first place, and they also have a misplaced sense of history, since if it weren't for the French, we'd still be an English colony. They forget about these things indeed. These same people are the ones who actually wanted to, and did change the French Fries they were selling in the cafeteria of the place that I work in, into "Freedom Fries". I'm also sorry to say that the whole first proponent of that little stupid ass re-naming of a fast food in the Capitol eatery in Washington DC came from a North Carolina representative, but I digress. I can fufill them with tales of Armstrong, and they seem happy about it, and like I said, since they most likely usually only pay attention to the Big 3 sports in the US (football, basketball, and to a lesser extent baseball), I'm glad to see them branching out, even though their branching out will no doubt end as of now, since Lance old boy retired immediately after le Tour de France this year. Au revoir Lance. Thanks for getting the rednecks to pay attention to something other than fishing on OLN, and then you take off. Damn boy, would should have stayed around just a little while longer, and it's possible these guys would really start following the sport.

The other reason I'm glad the Tour is over, is my guilty little pleasure known as www.roadbikereview.com. There is a forum section on there, and I post on there, a lot. Not as much as some, but a lot. There is a procycling forum on there, and when the Tour started, the newbies came flooding in like a plague. I like newbies for the most part, but when different newbies ask the same questions over and over and over again, it's time to give them the verbal smackdown via the internet. For instance, I can't remember how many posts there were on there about why Alexandre Vinokourev was wearing a blue colored jersey as opposed to his team's regular color jersey (his regular color was pink, oops, I mean magenta). The first time, I could see this question being asked. It was because he was and is the Kazakh national champion, and his national champs jersey was and is blue. Easy enough. But when this question kept coming up again, and again, and again, and again, and I mean someone new would post this question every other day on there, it was time to go off on someone and tell them to use the damn search function. The same thing went for the question they kept asking about the yellow tabs on the rear of the bikes (transponder for timing and results). That question was asked I don't know how many times over the course of the Tour. I mean, come on people, just get a little clue about something, pay attention to the broadcast, because they answered your questions on there about a kajillion times over the course of the 3 weeks. I don't know why I let these things bother me. I don't know at all. I shouldn't, but they do, and then I answer. As sarcastically and as biting as possible. I can't help myself, and of course people get pissed about this, and tell me things like, "If you don't like the subject of this post, don't respond to it." You see though, it's like crack to me. I can't help it. I HAVE to respond to people being dumb asses. It's just my nature. It's not that I'm not a dumb ass either, because believe me when I say it, I am, it's just that they're being a bigger dumb ass than I could ever possibly be. I think if I ever went to a meeting of people that post on there, I would most definitely get beat down. There are only a few people on there that seem to think like I do, so maybe we could all be outlaws together or something, and form our own posse. Just maybe. Then there is the General forum, where people just post random thoughts, like, "I was on a ride today, and fell down." I hate to say it, but who the hell cares if you fell on your ass or not? Hardly anyone. Of course people respond like, glad you're OK, glad you were wearing your helmet, and so on. Which of course always leads to another thread about helmet use and its actual effectiveness, and then that will lead to whether or not you should wear a walkman while riding, and then campy versus Shimano. Those 3 threads. Walkman wearing, helmet wearing, and campy versus shimano are the battles of yore. They come up about once per week, and then you get 1000+ views, and 100+ responses to the most stupid questions. I've gotten involved with those before, never again my friends, never again. But like I said, I can't help myself sometimes. I think it might be a disease or something like that. It's awful. I'm taking myself away from it this week, and see how my life improves. It's sad when the jerkoffs in the procycling forum can piss me off more than the jerkoffs in the political forum. Now I know it's time to stop for a short while before I totally piss everyone off in there.

Speaking of sports though. Go and see the movie Murderball about the wheelchair rugby team of the US. It's good, it's a great look at this team, and their stories of how they got to where they are now, and how they approach life, sport, and their injuries. It's great stuff really. I couldn't highly recommend it more. I saw it this afternoon, and I was entranced. As with all movies that I think are great, if I kind of just go into a daze, and I'm totally into it, and don't talk and barely move during the movie, that's a good sign. That's how it was with this movie. So go and see it. I even recommend it as highly as say, Wedding Crashers, or Samurai Champloo. A few of my favorites right now indeed.

It's now approaching 9:50 or so in the PM on Sunday night, and this dog is tired. Time to rack out, and approach Monday morning with a zeal not seen since the time of, well, I don't know since the time of what really... It just sounded good. I dread Monday mornings indeed, as I have to go back to work at the place I call work. I hope I can get some stuff done this week, and not be distracted by how much it kind of sucks there. I know, I know. I can get through the remainder of this year pretty easy I think, and then maybe start looking for something new and exciting maybe next year. It's hard to give up the flexibility of the place that I work now, and it's hard to give up a boss who doesn't give a damn about much of anything aside from her kids. Now, don't get me wrong. It's great that she's so into her kids, but there has to be a line. She was on vacation last week, and was claiming to us, as loudly as she could, that this was her first week of vacation this year. Bullshit my friends, bullshit. That woman has been out of work more than she's been in I think this year, but since the other days were just half days here and there, and not "official" vacation days they didn't count. I can't actually remember a week when she's been in the office every single day, which is why I don't feel bad coming in early, and leaving early, or taking a fake "dentist" day here and there, and things like that. If she doesn't care about things; why should the rest of us? As you go up the food chain at my place of employment, it gets worse. The Plant Manager is even worse than my boss, but we get along well, so I've got that one dialed in. I do care about the quality of my work though, and I think I do a pretty good job on a daily basis, but I just don't feel too bad at all about bending the rules for my own benefit. Same as the rest of the folks that I work with. I will say this though. I still get there, put in my 9 to 10 hours per day and then leave. If I get there at 8, well, I'm stuck there until 5 for sure. But if I get there at 7, you can sure as hell bet that I'm taking off at 4. If I get there by 6:30, well, can't get out at 3:30, but 4 is the latest I'll go. But the job is getting boring more and more so, and the automotive quality world is usually just a bunch of people yelling at you all of the time. When you do bad, you get yelled at. When you do good, there's quiet. I like quiet.

10:00PM. Time to sleep.

Insomnia baby... It's the new blue...

Insomnia, such a bad word. And it is something that I keep suffering from it seems. Just when I think I’m over and done with it, this little thing pulls me back in. Take for instance the time I spent awake last night watching infomercials, and bad late night TV. Oh, 4:30AM is not a bad time to be awake, but normally, when I’m awake that late/early, I’d like to think it was because I was off doing something adventurous, and or exciting, and or maybe just getting sloppy drunk. Was that the case last night? Nope, nothing like that happened at all. I sat on the couch, and basked in the warm glow of television from roughly 7:00PM, which is the time I got home from work, until 4:30AM, when I actually felt tired enough to crawl into bed, and sort of fell asleep after laying there for 15-20 minutes. My advice, the whole counting sheep thing, it really does work, or well, just counting in general. So if you can’t count, that won’t work for you, but if you can count well, you’re in luck you silly bastards. Actually then, I got to sleep more like 4:45AM, which when the alarm clock goes off at 7:10AM (which is my drop dead time I can get out of bed, brush the teeth, throw on some dirty clothes, comb hair, slap on some deodorant, get out the door, climb into the car, and drive away and still make it to work by 8:00AM) does not leave much time for sleeping. And then when you hit the snooze button several times, well, it gives you a little more sleepy time, but not a whole frigin’ lot. Mister, I’m so tired right now, I feel like laying down on my keyboard at work so I can get a few winks. But since sleeping at work is a definite no-no, I’ll pass on that for now, drink a Red Bull and soldier on for the rest of the day. Speaking of sleeping at work though. BMT (Before My Time) at illustrious GKN Driveline in Roxboro, NC, there was a woman who worked in the quality department as a parts inspector on 3rd shift. She couldn’t make it through a complete 3rd shift without getting some shut eye, so she hatched this plan, and was successful at it for almost 2 years, where she would stash a pillow and a blanket in one of the lockers in the women’s locker room, and when she felt tired, she’d grab her gear, and hunker down in the women’s shower in the corner. This being 3rd shift, and nobody ever using the shower, especially on 3rd shift, this was an awesome plan. Her stretch of good luck came to an abrupt end when someone who had gotten something in their eye ran into said shower in the women’s locker room, and started up the water to flush her eyes, and lo and behold, someone got a little soaking. It was very George Costanza of her, but like George, she couldn’t get away with it forever, but hey, 2 years is a good run for sleeping half of the time you’re at work, and getting paid for it. Let’s not even discuss the sex scandals that have gone down in the training house we have on-site here. I’ve heard that the training house has probably seen more sex than some houses of ill repute. The drive home might be a little more treacherous though, we’ll see what shakes loose on that one. Hopefully, I’ve pulled all nighters at work, and was still able to get home safe and sound, so driving on a couple of hours of sleep should be a walk in ‘ze park. I’ve driven the route enough now, so that I could probably do it asleep with the eyes closed anyway. What’s up with me and long commutes? I could live in Roxboro and be close to work after all… HAHAHAHAHAHA!!! Phew, that was a good one. Live in Roxboro. If you’ve never been to Roxboro, think about the middle of nowhere, and that’s Roxboro. I can’t even begin to explain how boring life would be living in town here. If I wanted to get a cheap house though, that would make it more attractive, but alas, I’ve come to the distinct conclusion that Roxboro sucks. I think there are possibly more rednecks per capita here than just about anywhere else within North Carolina, except for maybe Johnson County, which of course has the market cornered on all things redneck, and the sad fact, is that they’re proud of it. Immensely proud of it. It’s like a badge of honor amongst the folks that live there.

Lee and Jeannie’s wedding next weekend in and around Portsmouth, NH and Eliot, ME. I’m thinking it’s going to be a good time, mostly because there will be lots o’ booze, and fun and excitement for everyone. I’m actually not really psyched about going just yet, I almost didn’t go, but family members had good reasoning for why I should go, so I sucked it up, and bought the plane ticket yesterday. Of course I waited too long, and had to pay a little extra, but it wasn’t too bad. I just didn’t feel like going though for some reason. Nothing against Lee and Jeannie of course, because they’re both pretty decent people, but I just didn’t feel like dragging my ass up there for another wedding. I’ve been to about 15-20 weddings in New England over the last 6 years, and of course, people I know who were getting married couldn’t do it when I lived there, and would have made travel easier and less costly, nope, everyone has to get married AFTER I move out of the State of Maine. Oh well, it’s just something that we all suffer through I guess. Everyone we know getting married at some point in time. I’m truly happy for them though, I think they’ll have a great time together in this little process we call life. Speaking of weddings and such though, it’s really coming down to it now. Everyone I know, or just about everyone I know and am friends with is either married, or engaged. Even Jeremy McDaniel, is now engaged. Let’s run through the list of people I know that are married or engaged to be married:

Joel A: Engaged
Melissa: Engaged
Joel D: Engaged
Jeremy: Engaged
Jill D: Engaged
Steve-o Jones: Engaged
Sarah: Engaged
Sarah Neighbor: Engaged
Johnny Wall: Not engaged, but should be soon
Maureen: See J. Wall explanation
Jason D: Married
Jason Mc: Married
Amy: Married
Chad: Married
Alex: Married
Matt: Married
Becky: Married
Lyster: Might as well be married
Danielle and Phil: Might as well be engaged
Rich: Swinging single (he’s the only one)

All of the cool kids are doing it I guess (well, except Rich that is, but it’s probably because he’s got an alligator, no, seriously, he has a pet gator). Engagements and marriage, it’s like the new crack. I’m the last in the family actually to either not be engaged or married, and that’s OK, I’ve always been a loner in the general sense of things. Must be my highly independent/not easy to get along with streak that I’ve shown on occasion. Although I was engaged once, and well, that just didn’t take or work out too well. Sometimes, that’s just the way certain things happen. Although, at the time, it was not a good thing, I think that it is now, given my penchant for hating children now, and given the penchant for which the woman I was formerly engaged to wanted nothing more than to be a mother, I think there might have been strife in that situation after awhile.

Having kids for me would be like a nightmare indeed. I don’t want them, and don’t need them that’s for sure. There are only certain things I know in my life, and not having kids is one of them. Some of the others are: fearing the ocean and the creatures within it (one should fear and respect the ocean for all of its power and might), hating clowns (worst idea ever for kids in general), and hating seafood even though I’m from Maine, so I was supposed to be brought up on the stuff allegedly (hey, people, let me clue you in on something, not everywhere in Maine is close to the coastline). I know the whole not having kids thing is going to disappoint my parents, but oh well, they should be used to being disappointed in me by now. I’ll just let it roll. The closest thing I’ll ever have to a kid will be a dog. And even that would be hard for me to have alone, as I’m gone a lot, and travel a lot on weekends. The boarding costs would be killer indeed., well, that and the dog would hate me eventually I’m sure if I left it alone for every single weekend. Maybe a cat would do better??

OK, I’m going to go and slap myself around a little bit so I can stay awake here at work, and watch the clock like a hawk, because right now, it’s almost 10:00AM on Friday, so I have like another 6.5 hours before I can jet out of this place. Man, that’s sounding bad. 6.5 hours… Maybe I should have brought my blanket and pillow.

Ugh...

I think I need to just not work. This would help my cycling fitness a lot. When I was on vacation for 2 weeks, it was possibly the best ever. I just slept in a little, and rode a lot. Watched the Tour on TV in the afternoon after riding, ran errands, paid bills, and then took a nap, and then rode again later on in the day sometimes. Those were good times. Now that I’m back at work, it’s commute in the morning for 45 minutes, work for 9, commute back for 45 minutes, and then it’s hot as blazes out there, and I can feel the fitness that I gained melting away with the late summer heat. Why? Because I don’t want to ride my bike after work, and I blame work for that. Either that or I’m at a mental state where I don’t feel like racing or riding right now. I want to continue to race, but right now, it’s just damn hard is all. Especially when you look at some of the guys, even regionally, that I have to race against. The best guys in our category are guys that don’t really work. They are guys for the most part that are just riding and racing their bikes. Sure they might have some little bit of a job somewhere doing something for 10-20 hours per week, but they’re not working/commuting for 50 hours, so that makes it really hard to compete and to be competitive against these folks. There are exceptions to this rule of course, but they are few and far between, and the guys that are exceptions to said rule, are more or less naturally gifted athletes to begin with, which, to my best knowledge, I’m not. I have to work hard at my chosen sport to even be competitive. To be really good at it, I’d have to work exceptionally hard, which is something I’m willing to do, but don’t have the time to do it. Ah, if only I had discovered this road racing business when I was younger, I would have been much better off. But instead, I discovered it too late in life to get a good head start on it. Maybe in my next life? Then again, road racing in Maine didn’t exist for the most part. It still doesn’t. There are a few races there every year now, but if you want to race, you’ve got to travel to Massachusetts, and the rest of New England before you can find acceptable road racing, so that wouldn’t have flown when I was growing up. I guess in the meantime, I’ve got to just keep flogging it, and trying to make it work out there on the roads of the SE.

You’ve got to see the movie The Woodsman though. Kind of a gripping tale I’d say, and really well done. Kevin Bacon at his “spookiest” which is I know hard to imagine if you’ve ever seen Footloose, but I digress. Good cast in this one. Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick, Mos Def, Eve, Benjamin Bratt, and a few other names you’ve heard before, and amazingly enough, none of them were paid anything to make the movie, as they all loved the script and the story, so they just made it. Of course as always is the case with movies like this, it tackles a taboo subject (former child molester let out of prison and now trying to live “normally”), and the regular Hollywood channels didn’t want to touch it, or fund it. And as is always the case in these things, the movie is great, and has received rave reviews and lots of acclaim. When is Hollywood going to learn that when you think a movie is taboo, or sounds a little too independent, these are the movies that you sign up to fund and make? Year after year, you hear the same stories from different filmmakers about how the regular channels didn’t want to make their movie because it was too risky, or something of that nature, and year after year, these movies that are risky end up being the best films of the year to see. Instead Hollywood likes to fund remakes of movies that have already been made, and in some cases (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) were great to begin with, and then they re-do them anyway. Especially this summer. It’s been the summer of remakes. I’m starting to think that Hollywood is not the center of creativity that it once was. Normally, when you see something really outstanding on the screen or on DVD, it has come out of nowhere, or somewhere nowhere near Hollywood. Case in point, The Woodsman, done in Philadelphia or somewhere near there. Not your usual LA scene there for certain. Anyway, go see it. You’ll be doing yourself a favor. Something else that I’ve seen recently as well that I’ve really enjoyed, Samurai Champloo. Check it out at: www.samuraichamploo.com You won’t be sorry for checking that out as well. From what I can tell, it’s a Japanese TV show, it has samurai in it, and hip-hop, and a wise cracking bad ass. So what’s not to like really?? I think that I have mentioned this show before, and if I have, oh well, get over it, I like to repeat myself sometimes. It’s good stuff. Put it on your Netflix list immediately. And if you don’t have Netflix, get on that as well.

In looking at the results from the Tour de Toona that started this week, I see our local boys, Manulife, is not doing too bad, well, at least Hatcher is not doing too bad. He top 20’d the prologue, and hung in to get the same time in the first stage. Don’t know what else is going to happen to them going into the 3rd stage and beyond. We’ll see. There is a lot of firepower there. A lot of firepower. I am so glad that this year’s Tour de France is over as well, because damn, if I have to hear or see one more thing about Lance Armstrong, I’m gonna choke. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, and I like how he races, and he’s fucking tough, but damn people are obsessed with him. It’s not his fault, he’s just a victim of his own success. In looking at a cycling forum that I visit a lot, and post on, a lot, I see in the pro cycling forum, there is nothing in there except crap about Armstrong. Not even relevant stuff. Things like the following threads that I’ve viewed lately:

• Because his back is so large, does that make his lung capacity greater?
• Pictures of Lance and Sheryl
• Who is the greatest American cyclist? Lance or Greg?
• Stage 21 bike and meanings
• Jan speaks. About Lance.
• Was Robin Williams at the Tour this year?
• 1997 Lance Armstrong interview

And so on, and so on… Ugh… It’s killing me. I want to tell all of these stupid fanboys to get off of Lance. He won the Tour, talk about that. Talk about his racing tactics, and so on and so forth. Let’s not overanalyze him down to the nitty gritty. It’s freakin’ killing me, absolutely killing me. I would love to go in there and flame everyone. But I can’t. I’ll just hold my tongue, and let rip later on when after 2 months from now, they’re still talking about Lance, I’ll promptly remind them that he’s no longer a pro cyclist, so if they want to talk about pro cycling, feel free, but if you want to talk about Lance, then go somewhere else. It really makes me want to pull my hair out, and makes me want to scream. Maybe I should just stay away from said forum, but I can’t. It’s like crack. It’s a guilty pleasure. I can’t help my-damn-self. There is some good racing going on, and all these jokers want to talk about is Lance, Lance, and more Lance. I think from now on I should just place myself on probation as far as looking at that website, or at least the pro cycling forum. I’ll stick to the political forum instead. That, amazingly enough, seems to make me less mad than the pro cycling forum.

Mistakes and changes...

I think I made a mistake this weekend. In preparing to race this weekend, I took several (meaning 3 days) off during the week in the run up to the race for this weekend. This was a big mistake. I felt flat and dead during the weekend. Oh yeah, didn’t help much that I projectile vomited during the road race, because I had an upset stomach when I work up the morning of the road race, and my head was thumping like a bass box in a lowrider. I couldn’t eat in the morning because I felt ill, and then I laid down in bed when I got back to the hotel room, and felt a little better later on. Before I laid down, I was feeling like I wouldn’t be able to race. Later on, I felt like I could do it. So I went out there, and as soon as the pace got hard, I wilted, the stomach felt awful again, and after the second lap on the up and down rolly as Hell course, I ejected myself off the back of the pack, pulled over to the side of the road, and puked up anything I had eaten that morning, along with the water I had drank earlier during the race, and some endurance drink as well. Game over, cash me out, I was done. Rolled slowly back to the parking lot, and found The Chad to my surprise had suffered a mechanical error out on the road, got a wheel from the wheel truck, and was unable to make it back to the pack. We were both out at the same time. Except he felt good, I felt like ass, so we packed up, and went away before the race finished. Of course, we saw the field come through on the 3rd lap, and when they did, Chris “Harkules” Harkey was off the front by about 3 minutes. Once again, the Hincapie Bianchi team blew themselves to bits to allow their main man, or men (if you include Scottie Weiss) to get off the front of the race. Time to roll away from the race site, not feeling so good about myself, but OK with the fact that most of the field got shellacked anyway, so it wasn’t too bad. We started with 50-something folks, and by the time the second lap was done, there were 25. And it got smaller from there. And the other thing, guys, when there’s a long road race that facilitates the need to have a feed zone, don’t be assholes and attack in the feed zone, that’s just not cool, but of course, it happens in every single race I’ve ever done that has a feed zone in it. That’s just bad form. Really bad form. Trying to grab a bottle at 30+ MPH is not something that is easily achievable, and if you slow down, well, you might as well just quit because you’ll probably not make it back into the group without a lot of hard chasing. I’m thinking about starting to carry a frame pump during races, and if someone starts throwing it down in the feedzone, frame pump to the spokes of the wheels should do wonders to stop that from happening again.

2nd race of the weekend was a crit. Now normally, crits are usually flat affairs. Not so for this weekend. There was nothing flat on this course. Up a hill, more hill, false flat, up a little more, sharp turn, fast descent, and then you’re back to the hill again after moving through a parking lot. OK, so it was a decent course actually, but when you’re feeling like a gigantic piece of shit like I was, it’s not so good. 6 laps, and out. Simple as that really. 6 laps and I was done. The legs felt dead again, and wouldn’t go around for me. I just cracked, and blew out the back faster than you can say Shazzam! Not my best moment, and gave me pause to wonder what the hell I’m racing bikes for. I can’t even finish a race this year to save my life, and it doesn’t seem to matter what kind of training or riding I do, nothing seems to be working to make me go fast. Heck, not even fast, but I’d take mediocre at this point in time. So of course I’ll try again next weekend in Winston-Salem, and see what happens there. I like the course we’re racing on next weekend, but there are going to be some big hitters in town for this race, so I suspect it’s going to be fast from the start to finish, and we’ll see if I can just hang in there to finish. That’s all I’m really looking for for this weekend. Hoping to finish it off. Sad, I know, but that’s what it’s come down to for me. Just wanting to finish a race. That would actually raise my confidence level a bit at least, because right now, it’s kind of not so good.

The other bad thing is that this week, it’s supposed to be near or over 100 for the first part of the week, which makes riding and training treacherous at best because of the temperatures. With this in mind, I have been drinking a lot of water today, and will do so through the rest of the day, and hope that I can sort of “super hydrate” the body, and the cells, and get what I need before I go out and ride the bike this evening. We’ll see how that shakes out. Worst case scenario, I ride the trainer indoors in the AC instead of training outside. I’d hate to do that though, because the trainer and I have a love-hate relationship. Meaning, I just hate the trainer. It can kiss my ass for all I care. I’d almost rather gnaw my own hand off than ride the trainer, but sometimes, it’s just what you have to do to get by. Normally, I would save the trainer for winter days when it’s raining and cold, or if it’s snowing and or icy out there, or just too cold, but it might get called into action for the hot summer heat. Ah, North Carolina in the summer, sometimes it just sucks.

Speaking of which, it was sort of my anniversary of moving down to NC today. I arrived in Chapel Hill, NC to live on 25-Jul-99. So it’s been a full 6 years now of living in the South, and other than the stupid heat and humidity that I encounter in the summer, it’s been aces living here. Good stuff this North Carolina. I’m glad that I moved. So yeah, 6 years and counting. Seems strange that I’ve been out of school now for 10 years, and 4 of the years were lived in Maine, with the majority now being in NC (post college of course). 10 years ago in 1995, I wouldn’t have guessed that I would be living in NC. I saw myself living in New York State somewhere, but that’s another story. Strange how things change around completely from what you thought you’d be doing. I once pictured myself married, with a few kids, and doing the “family” thing. Now, here I am, 32 years old, un-married, and not wanting to have kids ever. I’d say, that’s about 180 degrees from what I thought I’d be doing when I graduated college. But, things change. Things most definitely change.

Racing starts again...

This weekend forthcoming is something indeed. In what is the first time since I suffered horribly at the hands of some pro riders and local hammerheads in Raleigh, I’ll be racing the bike again this weekend. Yes, I’ll be racing. I’m way behind schedule as far as races go so far this year, but over the next few weeks, should be able to catch up a little bit. This weekend is the annual French Broad Classic race weekend in Asheville NC (AKA Ashe-Vegas). It’s a good series of 3 races over the weekend, the TT on Friday night, the road race on Saturday, and the criterium on Sunday, but, it’s Asheville, there are hills around that place. This is something guys like me don’t like at all. I’m not really sure what’s going to happen, but what I do know is that I’ve laid down some good training over the last 5 weeks, so I can’t say that I haven’t really prepared at all. When I last decided to buckle down and start riding and training hard again, it was June 18th. When the training cycle was over, it was July 17, about 31 days or so. Over that 31 days, I rode 31 times, to the tune of over 80 hours, and close to 2000 miles. That’s some good mileage right there, and I’m starting to feel really good on the bike again finally. This weekend, might just be a decent weekend. Truth be told, I’m looking to get some good racing in, maybe make a result, but in the end, I just want to finish up the races, as I’ve had a hard time just doing that so far this race season. I’m sure a 3 mile climb at the end of the road race on Saturday is not going to do this lard ass any favors at all. You can check out the race website at: http://www.frenchbroadcyclingclassic.com/ As always this weekend, I’ll be accompanied by The Chad, whose on little cycling diary and or training diary, and or rant page can be found at: www.dirtycycling.com and actually, young Curtis Shirley Staples’ entries can be found there as well. There is going to be a lot of racing coming up though. This weekend, Asheville. Next weekend, Winston-Salem, then W-S again on Tuesday, and Crossroads starts on Wednesday and runs through Sunday. Unfortunately, I won’t be around for the weekend races during Crossroads, as my cousin is getting married, so I have to travel Northward again, for another wedding in a few week’s time. Should be a good time, and a large party, and this time, I won’t have to do much work for the actual wedding. I’ll just get to be a guest this time instead of setting up, carting people around, standing all day, and then picking up at the end of the reception as I had to before.