Out of Order

While I've been trying to chronologically catch up to my adventures, I want to take a break from that and tell everyone that DaniJay is the COOLEST DJ EVER! Once I get the pictures off my camera I will post them up. I managed to snag a cool hat, and got a picture with him and an autographed card. Best concert/performance EVER! So if you're sharp, you'll notice it's 5:30 AM here in Spain. He came on close to 3:45 AM to a pretty packed house and played a set close to an hour or so. Check out his site: www.danijay.com Off to sleep now...

Finally...a Good Ride and Day

Yesterday (June 3) I did a very touristy ride with Duilio which involved going into Portugal. Once there we encountered the famous cobblestone sections that Portugal is so well known for. It was pretty fun going up the cobbled road and then descending it I felt the vibrations that Paris-Roubaix guys must feel for miles at a time.

Today (June 4), I finally managed to go out with the "grupeta" or group that gathers by the fountain to get water and ride in the mornings. Fountains are an awesome thing that Spain has. Basically, due to the severe seasonal rains, a lot of spring and groundwater is available and these fountains have been built in the centers of town and in remote locations such as near the middle of mountain climbs, where people can get the cleanest water available. This is for sure one thing I will miss from here since I can definitely taste the difference and I have been told that fountain water is much cleaner and better than tap water. In any case, we went and rode Vuelta al Valle and then ended up adding another 20 km afterwards just for fun and to build endurance. Another odd thing is that people take 20 km pulls when in a group ride. That way the pace is kept at a fairly moderate and conversational pace. Among other traditions is to stop to take a "natural break" about 35 km into the ride where there is a cutout in the rocks. Also a town about 65 km into the route called Baiona which has some beautiful beaches, is the place where everyone stops and buys food at this store nicknamed "La Piluca". Some people even go into the bars and cafes to drink coffee and have a roll before continuing. This training is definitely much different from the mini-races we have for training back home.

Somehow I was at the front while pulling out of Baiona and was riding with Ramon Troncoso who races for Karpin Galicia, a Pro Continental team, and that's when I realized we were going to climb San Cosme at the head of the bunch. Definitely an eye-opening experience. I have not suffered this much in my life on the bike. I was later told that we went up it just a bit slower than they normally would climb it but I was down in my 39x25 giving it my all and trying not to die up the 11 km climb! I started to see numbers that I did not think were available in my PowerTap for that long a period of time. After cresting the mountain, I had a great feeling of accomplishment and I was happy to have stayed up front the whole time!

Anyway, I decided enough was enough and have decided to put up the rest of my Barcelona pics so I can finally start putting up pictures of Vigo, Porrino, Portugal, and all the other cool things that I'm seeing now.

So a quick rundown of the pictures from Barcelona. Up near the Olympic Village, there is an amphitheater which is the first picture above. The second picture is the outside of the Olympic Stadium from the 1992 Olympics. I am not entirely convinced but I think the small protuberance is where the arrow was shot with fire from the Olympic torch to initiate the Games. The third picture is a view of the port area of Barcelona from Montjuic. From a previous post, I ran up Montjuic and after seeing all these great views, I decided to drag my cousin back in his car to check out all these places and take pictures. There I am with Barcelona in the background. Montjuic is so long and steep that there is a lift service to get to the top. There are also a lot of tour buses that go up there as well.

Nourishment! Nuttela and baguettes! Essence of life. The stadium of the Barcelona Football Club that has so many stars is the following pic. Right now the Eurocup is being played in Austria and Spain has won all its games so far and is headed to the finals for the first time in 24 years versus Germany. Hopefully all goes well and this motivated Spanish squad can pull it off!

Two views from the beach in Barcelona. Very warm weather and warm water from the Mediterranean! Beautiful beaches and it wasn't even June yet! The inside of the Olympic Stadium is the next to last picture. I was actually able to do a short stair run before I was chased away by the Guardia Civil. The last picture is of a castle up high in Barcelona. It had some kind of museum inside but there was no time to check it out, it just seemed neat to take a picture of it and its moat with an actual river running around it.

During this flash 1-day excursion I got to see a lot of Barcelona. This is a wonderful city and I hope to have more time to look around a bit more at the tail end of the trip. Onwards now to Galicia!

Pereiro Sighting

Today while riding by myself for the first time, I saw Oscar Pereiro out training. He was just coming home through the "Poligono" which is essentially the industrial area just outside Porrino. It was really cool to be able to finally see the famous yellow jersey winner.

Continuing with the set of Barcelona pics. The first one is the outside of a bullfighting ring and the next one is a very cool-looking building. Barcelona is a very modern city with a really great blend of ancient historical buildings and very forward-thinking futuristic architectural designs. It was definitely a change to be in the Old Continent. I have a few more Barcelona pics to put up and then it'll be time to put up the more recent ones from racing, training, mountains, Portugal, etc...

Hardest Climb

So after last night's extracurricular activities, David and I decided to ride around Porrino a bit. He wanted to show me a few roads and climbs so I would not be so lost. The most impressive part of the ride was the climb up Monte Aloia. This was far and away the toughest climb I've ever done. Although Mt. Nebo in Arkansas is extremely tough and steeper, it is only about 5 km compared to the almost 7.5 km of punishment that Aloia dishes out. The toughest psychological bit is that you actually can see the entire hill at each step of the climb so you can see how much you have left. After that, we went down and tied it with a climb up San Cosme. During the regular group rides on weekdays at 11 AM and weekends at 10:30 AM, we follow the same route called Vuelta al Valle. We climb San Cosme from the longer, but much easier side but today we went up the steeper shorter side. After having climbed it and descended home, I was pretty much spent.

This is another set of Barcelona pictures. The dock at the end of La Rambla and a boat parked there are the first two pictures. The third picture is of a group of friends and my cousin having dinner my last night in Barcelona.

1st Race - Or Not (and Afterhours in Vigo)

So less than 1 day after having my first bike ride, I'm on the team bus headed to a race. It's a 140 km loop that has 4 major climbs. Barely having had much sleep since I got to meet the guys and trying to recover. A very interesting thing is that these guys go to bed close to 2 or 3 AM. The reason is that we all tend to wake up around 9:30 or 10 AM to get ready for the ride that leaves at 11 AM. Therefore, in order not to be hungry we try to have breakfast as close to ride time as possible. I normally go to bed around 1 or 2 AM back home anyway, it's just that that would put me close to 7 or 8 AM here. But I'm getting used to the time change. By the way this first picture is a long boulevard in Barcelona filled with cool street performers (like the following 2 pictures which show 'human statues') and outdoor merchants and bazaars. The last picture shows a really nice shot of a neighborhood where I hung out for a bit and it reminds me of Times Square in New York...
I diverge. After getting to the race, we are told that due to some kind of Galician/Spanish regulation, the team is only allowed to start 2 non-EU riders. Jose Ramos and Dimitry Pozanov are the two guys who get to start since they are going really well. Duilio, Roman, and I don't start and ride the course backwards which means that we get to hit all the climbs, twice, since we have to ride forward before we get in the way of the race. Caputi has an Italian license so he starts. Torres just had a root canal and does not want to have any testing issues with novocaine so he also takes the day off from racing.
Lesson #1 - Pack your clothes. I rode around in thermal bibtights and a long sleeve jersey in 70 degree weather. Not a good idea. Better yet, I HAD packed my short sleeve/leg stuff but I was unable to find it in the duffel bag. Odd.

Lesson #2 - Get your food before the team truck gets locked. I had a full small water bottle that I was warming up with and then when we were told that we wouldn't start and just to ride around, I saw that the truck had closed. It being warm and having to ride close to 100km over the mountains, on 1 bottle made me sad. And worried. By the way, from now on, due to the nature of this, I'll be writing all distances/speeds in metric units. If you don't know them learn them!

So while riding, I started to realize the toughness of the racing here. Duilio and Roman easily rode up the mountains while I struggled mightily. Sure, it helped that they were between 30-40 pounds (I just use km - pounds are what I'll keep using for weights) lighter than I but they had such a fluid pedal stroke and awareness of the terrain. I have 12 weeks here, hopefully I pick up on a lot of it.

Although I did not get to race, I still got to go to the team presentation before call-ups. It was pretty cool to get up on the stage (bibtights and all) and get pictures taken. Ramos finished in the top 10 and Dimitry was in the back of the main pack, around 20-30th. He had an unfortunate fall in a roundabout, about 3 km before the finish but picked himself up and rode himself back into the lead group.

It was finally time to enjoy the mythical Spanish nightlife. David came to pick me up around 12:30 (yes, 30 minutes past midnight) to hang out. We went to his house in Vigo where I met a whole bunch of his friends, about 30 people or so in total. They were mainly hanging out outside his house drinking on the street and trying to not get too rowdy. The rowdy happened once we went in the house.

David lives in a pretty sweet attic space and among the amenities there is a big room with workout stuff, treadmill, his bike, etc. We all just hung out there and had a pretty good time drinking whiskey, rum, absinthe, Kas (it's just soda but sounds hardcore). Around 3:30 AM we decided it was time to hit the town. Normally we would drink in the town square for a couple of hours but decided that it was too late for that. Therefore we just went to a bar until about 5 and then left to go to another one until close to 7 when we decided to call it a night. The interesting thing about bars here is that if you are not done with your drink by the time they close it down (after-hours bars open at 5 AM when 'normal' bars shut down) they give you a plastic cup to take your unfinished drink with you to wherever you end up going next...

Mad Weight Loss!

It's way out of order but I finally managed to download the pics from my camera so I have 3 weeks worth of them. The first thing I noticed was my incredible weight loss through these short weeks. The first picture is from my first week of training in front of the cathedral in Tui, which is the next town over. The second picture is at a friend's restaurant, recently. Yes, I know I'm pleasuring a clay man BUT the main point is to see how losing 4lbs changes you. Check it out, especially since I'm supposed to lose another 16lbs in the next few weeks! By then I'll look like all the hungry riders around here! Oh yeah, if you look closely at the second picture, you can see a whole slew of shots. They are homemade there, and you get all cool flavors. Mind you we have to climb first 8 km and then go around the mountain for another 4 km to get to this place so we're pretty dehydrated and tired by the time we get there. So obviously, before the hair-raising descent we have to take a shot of each. The best two are ones made out of condensed milk and strawberry. There is also lemon, orange, kiwi (exotic), and coffee (strong taste, no kick). Good stuff!

First Day of Training

After having only 1 hour of sleep I felt extremely beat up but determined to make my 6:20 AM flight out to Vigo. I could have sworn it was 6:55 but, alas, I miscalculated. Luckily when I arrived at the airport, I saw a line labelled "last-minute check-in". At no time had this been more appropriate. I ended up being the last person to check in since after my suitcase was checked, the flight was closed. After, yet another, delay since I had to run across the entire airport as my gate was #118 and I passed security around gate #20, I had to run down steps to get into a shuttle that would take us to our plane on the other side of the airport where our plane was parked. I slept an hour in the plane and felt better.

I got in the Vigo airport and got picked up by Manolo, our DT. What a difference in weather. He told me that it had rained the entire past month (May) but it was finally clearing up. It was misty and cold, around 50F while Barcelona was over 75F the day before. As we drove to the team president's house we talked about the rest of the race season since the main part of the season was in the Spring and was wrapping up because it started in March and was about to be done by June. As soon as I got to the team prez's house, I was quickly outfit with everything
under the sun. There was a duffel bag, backpack, shoe bag, warm up suit, polo shirt, 3 pairs of socks, helmet, gloves, headwarmer, bibs, short sleeve jersey, dress shorts, bib tights, long sleeve thermal jersey, rain jacket. I went to meet my new teammates and figure out where I was to sleep.

This is a nice 4-bedroom apartment with 7 guys (including me) living there. I have a roommate (with bunkbeds no less), the two Russian guys share a room, two Venezuelan guys share a room and a Spanish ex-pro who's trying to get back into the pro ranks has a single.

After a quick nap, I went out for my first ride. I had a lot of things to adjust on the bike. I rode with Caputi, who's my roommate, through the first part of the usual group ride. We went by a small town called Tui and rode to a turn around point for a total of just around 85 km. It was a "chill" ride which amounted to over 50 miles. We then got back home and he showed me how to work the washer and to start the water heater for hot showers. I dropped the saddle a bit and I think I'll feel a bit better on the bike. I also need to get used to Campy since I've only used Shimano all this time. I brought my PowerTap hub and by the afternoon I had the wheel built up (by Oscar Pereiro's personal mechanic, none the less, who's also the team mechanic) so I was pretty stoked about that.

Barcelona

After taking a roughly 1-hour nap on the plane, the sun was up and we were in Barcelona. Not knowing whether my cousin had received my last text message to pick me up at 1 PM, I decided to risk turning on my cell phone to try to call him, regardless of the international roaming fees but, obviously, it was not going to work. With suitcases in hand and after a quick wash in the airport bathroom, I boldly ventured forth.

First impression: smoke. I was fairly sure there was no smoking allowed in the airport but the smell of smoke in the air was so strong that I started to doubt that belief. However after stepping outside I realized the smokers outside were causing the smoke inside. After waiting for a while I decided I should give him a call. Easy enough, except he was bringing a cell phone for me to use. I tried to see if any of the phones in the airport would accept credit cards. No luck. Is there an option for collect calls? Nope. Can I get money from the ATM...I will explain later why not, but yeah, no dice. I was about to ask a stranger to use their cell phone when I recognized my cousin's truck and minutes later saw him.

We ended up hanging out that afternoon and doing useful things like going to an ATM, which refused to give me money for a while until I charmed it into doing so. Not really. A quick call to my bank did the trick, apparently a transfer had not gone through but it worked after some trying. Also got a cell phone and changed the batteries in my watch.

Parking in Barcelona was one of the most painful things. The finding of a spot took over an hour of circling the neighborhood. And we had to make sure we were up by 9 AM to put money into the meter. There are zones in downtown were meters run for only 2 hours starting at 7 AM but one can refill it every two hours. The nice feature is that if you find a spot at 1 AM, the timer actually starts at 7 AM. However, something extremely awesome happened. I got to ride a bike! Full on Euro riding a 1-gear, coaster brake, city bike with no helmet on while following my cousin as he looked for a parking spot. We did that for about an hour and I eventually got really tired and sweaty so it was time to shower and chill for the rest of the night.

The next morning, after a well-deserved rest, I set out on a morning run by the city of Barcelona. My first destination was Montjuic the famed mountain and site of the Olympic Games of 1992. I ended up climbing up to the top of the mountain and touring the Olympic site. The highlight of my excuersion was to do a stair run on the Olympic Satdium. I had always wanted to set foot on the Olympic venue and after having done stair runs with Ollie last winter, I wanted to do that in a historic place so I got my wish. Even though it was closed due to Bon Jovi playing there the following day but I decided I got all the way there so I just went ahead and was
shooed away by a caretaker.

After getting a little lost getting back, I ended up getting in about a 30 km run in almost 3 hours. And then I knew where I wanted to take pictures. Then I went out with my cousin touristing. To be super Euro, we got a baguette and a jar of Nutella and that's what we ate throughout the day. We drove to Sagrada Familia or Sacred Family which is a really neat Cathedral building that is still being worked on. Then we also went to the Gaudi Park which was a major letdown to be honest. Then we went to the beach and walked the length of it enjoying the scenery. Lastly we went back up to Montjuic and took pictures of the Olympic sites and met up a friend who had
the inside track and we got to see the training facilities for the next wave of super athletes. Finally it was dinner time. We went to a very cool restaurant that served mostly pizza but there was a heavily loaded calzone that I just had to have since I had eaten nothing all day except Nutella-laced bread. It had an interesting blend of everything including mushrooms, peppers, and assorted meats and veggies. To top it off I had "Leche Catalana" which is very similar to creme brule, except that the sugar on top is struck with a hot iron to caramelize it. It's alright but I expected a bit more.

Finally went back and hit the bars for a bit but it was time to sleep since my flight to Vigo was early in the AM.

Odyssey to Spain

Who said that getting to Spain was going to be easy? Yeah, seriously, who? So after finding out that getting vitamins/supplements was difficult and expensive in Europe, I decided to add a stop at Target on my way out of town. Plus I needed to also get plug adapters so laptop and cell phone can be charged while in Europe. So when I realized how late it was and how I really needed to get the airport on time, urgency was in the air. Luckily I got to the Indianapolis airport just in time (something that will keep happening) and was able to get a pretzel as my last American food before leaving the good ole US of A. Upon getting to the boarding area I found out that due to weather problems my flight to Newark would be delayed for about an hour. No problem, I had my laptop and cell phone and kept myself busy. Little did I know this was the shortest delay I would find on this journey.

The transit through Newark was painful to say the least. I ended up sitting in the boarding area for 2 hours while frantically texting my cousin who was supposed to pick me up at 10 AM the following morning from Barcelona. We boarded and then proceeded to sit for 2 more hours on the plane. While the flight was supposed to leave at 7:10 PM, we ended up taking off at 11:15 PM. My day had started at 8 AM and it was not going to end anytime soon. Oh, and did I mention that my luggage was over the weight limit so I had to split it up among a roll-away and
the actual suitcase. Luckily I had brought an extra bag just for that purpose...

About an hour after take off the pilot told all passengers having window seats to kindly lower their shades as the sun would come up fairly soon...

Tour de Leelanau

Pista Elite was invited to race the Tour de Leelanau up in northern Michigan, in what essentially would be the pinkie finger of the peninsula. It was the first time for most of us to get to know each other since the majority of the Elite team was up there to race. Thursday night Jack and I went up to see our coach, Rich, in Chicago and get some power testing done. All I can say is that Jack is a beast and he's definitely a rider to watch in anything requiring brute power and strength. If he can learn how to relax and handle his bike a little better I would not be surprised to see a great results list coming from him. Friday I went to Midway Airport to pick up Ryan Sabga while Jack went to pick up Matt Waite at O'Hare. We met up with the rest of the team at a tiny grocery store about 10 miles from the race, Northport. Brian Nieport used to be a teammate of mine back in the day when Airborne had a decent team (or a team at all) and Adam Szcech is a track and crit racer from Toledo (now Cincinnati). The best part of the whole thing was that we got host housing and instead of staying with a family, we were told to contact the "Caretaker". That was puzzling as we had no idea what that was all about but it turned out we stayed in a Jesuit retreat center and it was an awesome cycling house with 2 floors and rooms for everyone. The guys went out for a short ride but it was getting cold since it was past 8:30 PM and I ended up staying in, riding the trainer since I did not have any knee/arm warmers.
Saturday, Jonesy, our courageous directeur sportif, boldly went where few have gone before. He bravely rode a Greyhound bus from Indianapolis, departing at 5:50 AM and arrived in Traverse City at 8:15 PM where I went to pick him up. Needless to say, it was EPIC! In the morning, Ryan, went to the bike shop since he is so buff and strong that he broke a stem bolt while putting together his bike at the grocery parking lot while surrounded by local townsfolk and assorted hecklers. Many hilarious stories stem from his trip to the shop. Among them are the new hire who said, after seeing Ryan buy 8 GUs, "stocking up for the season, eh?" And when he was told that the amount would cover him for the following day, the kid, staring wide-eyed, saying "really? How far do you ride?" Ryan coolly said he was racing 110 miles, and the kid replied "wow! the most I've ever done was 40 whole miles in one day! wow!" Apparently he was told that if a subsequent customer with a nice-looking bike walked in, he was to hide in the back and read something besides Bicycling magazine, something more along the flavor of Cycle Sport while dressed in full Castelli kit, sip espresso and try to appear less ignorant.

Which brings us to coffee. While everyone seemed to be drinking coffee, Ryan could not find a single coffee shop with to-go cups in the entire town. He finally stumbled upon a full-on liquor store that had a hidden coffee shop (with Solo cups) in the back side of the store. While graciously getting the entire team coffee, another native walked in and asked for pad thai. Almost startled, Ryan, saw someone emerge from an even deeper recess of the establishment and bring out a piping hot tray of the aforementioned dish. Liquor store, coffee shop, Thai restaurant. Possible sweat shop in the basement. That's how they roll up north.

Adam then had to go to the shop because he broke his crank bolt. Apparently we are full of strongmen in the Elite team. Of course the shop people had no idea what to do with his massive BB30 Cannondale set up but they were extremely helpful and machined a bolt to fit and it seemed to work alright. Mad props to them for helping out during crunch time. We picked up the race numbers and also took a few cool pics of the end of the race and took a couple photos of us holding the winner's checks since they were just sitting right there. Once I figure out how to download them, without the cable which I misplaced, I'll make sure to post them. We rode about 30 miles or so on the course and realized it was going to be a very cool race involving lots of climbs that were not individually tough, but would wear one out. During the team meeting, through the random draw, we got 1st spot among amateur teams and 4th in the line up so we were going to have our team car close in case we needed it.

Finally race time Sunday. Parking was chaotic as is expected. The weather was somewhat cloudy but it seemed as if it should hold. Ryan and I decided to race our dry weather wheels. So of course it rained. Ryan told me later that he started skidding and was sliding all over the road. My brakes did not work. I had to take a power bottle to get up a hard climb but the peloton blew up after the top and I ended up getting gapped behind some guys who were trashed. Together we made a small group and worked together to advance a bit. Adam was crashed out. Brian was not having a good day either. Only Matt and Jack seemed to be having a good day but eventually even they decided to bag it after 90 miles. Ryan and I called the race organizer from the broom wagon to tell Matt Jones to drive backwards and pick us up. As it started to clear up a bit Ryan and I ended up just switching wheels and rejoining the race instead. We caught some riders in Tower Hill which is the steepest climb with pitches of 24+%. Caught a few Jet Fuel racers and then little by little picked up more riders with Ryan and I doing most of the pulling. Eventually we got close to the finish and Ryan sent me up to the front to pick up the pace so he could get the glory of sprinting ahead of everyone. The plan worked, a few got dropped and he went up the top of the last rise with me following half a wheel behind him. 110 miles. One tough ride. Most importantly though we had some great times as a team and I'm very glad we all got to hang out together. I'll be missing most of the season since I got an opportunity to race in Europe but I'll be cheering from across the ocean for sure!

Qualifying Exam

Not bike related at all but just wanted to give a shout out that I just passed the most challenging exam so far. As luck would have it, the semester before I joined my current department, EAS, (Earth and Atmospheric Sciences) as new department policy was instituted, which is the Qualifying Exam. Interestingly enough, there had not been a weed-out process for graduate students entering the PhD program until the Preliminary Exam, which is late in the process to basically determine one should really not be in the program. Since it's a fairly new invention, committees have wide latitude with how to set up this exam. Some opt for the traditional set up where they give you an actual exam covering the material you should know to continue, both in written and oral form, others give you papers or book (chapters) to read. In my case, I was to give a presentation on a dissertation proposal. Basically a watered-down preliminary exam. After numerous bouts of schedulling and re-scheduling, I ended up giving the presentation and found out that if I did choose to continue doing all the things I presented I would be in school for another 10 years. Therefore a focus is now to take a year to delve a bit more and re-visit my goals. The challenging bit was to be able to switch from purely scientific questions to more "goal" oriented questions of which I, apparently, have too many. Overall, though, it was a great exam because I always feel that if I learned something through the experience, it was well worth it.

It's been a while...

Haven't written in almost 2 weeks for no good reason at all. So now with the most important test looming ahead of me I figured the best thing to do to prepare for it is to increase my mileage precipitously and blog.

Dark Man and I had an interesting run in with a gentleman we will forever remember as the "Purple Heart". We had just done close to 4 hours of training (starting at 8:45 AM nonetheless) that included 8 repeats up our famous 1000-calorie hill, and were feeling pretty good. As we are less than 2 miles from campus and we pass a subdivision, this black SUV that is leaving aforementioned cluster of houses, peels out to catch us. He gives me enough clearance but nearly takes out Naveen with his rearview mirror. We then gesticulate and he decides to stop in the middle of traffic and backs up almost running us over. He then proceeds to scream at us and say that we should be riding in the grass and out of his way. Makes sense for him to be upset seeing how he was so vulnerable in his oversized gas guzzler. I wonder what the old fucker was rushing for; early bird ends at 4 PM not 1 PM. Maybe he was too blind to read his watch. When he got crazier, I told him I would call the police, at which time he realized he was going to lose and sped off. We decided to call the police after all having memorized the license plates but then I had to go back to work and we had to take off.

So after deliberating, we decided to proceed to out local police station. Having been a fraternity member for many years, and held offices such as risk reduction and social chair, I had plenty of experience with the men in blue. We went to West Lafayette police station around 8:00 PM and since apparently it's closed after 4:30 we were buzzered into a small waiting room. We then pondered what would happen if we were just held there indefinitely. Being of Irish and German descent we figured we were both ok. After sitting there for a bit, we were told that there really was nothing they could do since it was outside city limits and to try the Sheriff.

So we went across town and followed the drill. However, there were no policemen at the station, just one operating out of this, appropriately labeled, "Control Room". We waited until one was radioed in and showed up around 9:15. We talked for a bit and discussed options such as pressing charges or not. We decided not to, but at least to have an officer inform the attacker, in person, that what we had done to us was not cool. So after I recited the license plate and back came a blue pickup truck, we realized we did not actually have the correct plate number. We tried a few permutations of the number but no dice. Therefore nothing was done. However I must here thank the officer involved as they were very courteous and tried to help as much as they could. Glad to see our tax dollars are being well spent.

105 miles on the road today, tired. Sprints in the AM tomorrow and hill repeats in the PM. G'night and good luck (to me)!

Bad days happen to everyone

So just when you think you're bullet-proof, along comes a reality check. Sure, I can blame low pressure, brake rubbing, creaky bottom bracket, new position, and the recession, but today I simply didn't have it. Glad to have had Joey and Stephen for company though, otherwise it would have been a very miserable 3 hours in the cold...

Cook-out

We all like cook-outs. I had one last night involving the finest meats and libations in all the land. There was fish jerky, marinated lamb, chicken, and the staples (hot dogs and burgers). Also enough dessert to turn everyone into a diabetic. Some shining moon was drank out of an engineering Quiz Bowl trophy cup, and a good time was had by all...

So EPIC!

First foray into this blogging biznazz. A bit of an intro - I'm a grad student trying to see how far I can go in cycling. Most of what you'll read will have no particular pattern. Although I spend way too much time on the bike I also attract very unique life experiences. I'll be heading off to race for a Spanish cycling team this summer so that will be the main thing I'll be focusing on this summer.

Anyway, as the title says, today was a fairly epic ride. Went out with a few of the guys on the team for what should have been a century ride. Eric, Chris, Jim, and Derek were all ready to battle the wind. We ended up riding into the wind it seemed 70% of the day at least. In the end Derek and I rode back, I had to do a loop around campus to make it to an honest century but ended up going over.

Tonight I ended up carb-loading for the next week by having Korean BBQ along with a dangerously spicy soup and watched paper cups not melt or catch fire in a fire that was definitely hot. Also decided that Will's legs were really comfy so 2 people used his legs as chairs for a pretty sweet photo-op. Too tired to do any core workouts tonight, I think I'll call it a night pretty soon.