Category: Bike

First, true confessions: I did not successfully complete my penance, unless a bath counts. Ah, well, such is life.

Saturday – great day! I ran the base perimeter. Somehow, on Friday night, the heat finally got turned on for the summer, and what had been a cold spring, with temps rarely hitting the 60’s, turned into bluebird skies and 80 degree weather. Ouch. I did not know it at the time, but I was running into the same wall Jon did. He did better with it than me, but hey, that’s life.

The run started off great – good stride, good legs, good breathing over some decently tough hills up from the gym, behind the Sub School officer training building, past the commissary, and over to the beginning of the perimeter trail. About halfway up the last long hill (as opposed to the steep hills that were still coming up), I ended up stopping for a while as base security pulled one of their trucks out of the ditch on either side of the road. After stopping, I was kind of thrown for a loop and never really got the rhythm back on the tough section of the run. But, the birds sang, the breeze blew, and the sun beat down on my ears. Life was good.

When I got home, the wife and kids were hanging out in the yard. I was starved after my run, so we ate an early supper. Then, I was able to talk my lovely wife into riding the bikes into town for dessert! She’s always been a gym/machine kind of person – cars and roads kind of spook her, so her agreeing to do the 5 miles each way was a big step. Especially since it meant spending at least some time in public with helmet hair!

The ride into town was great – the birds were still shining, the breeze was still blowing, and the sun still beat down on our ears, though a cool evening breeze was coming off the sound. We were locking up the bikes in the public parking on the Groton side, just off Main Street, and Melissa said “You know, that wasn’t bad at all.” My heart went pitter-pat…

On the way back, we made the turn back into the neighborhood, headed up the first small hill, and the next thing I know, Melissa’s up out of the saddle, and heading up the hill. I about died laughing (and I really mean died – dragging 100 lbs of boys and trailer up a hill really tests the whole VO2MAX thing) after she gives me the look.

Yeah, you cycling fans know which look I’m talking about: the one that Lance gave Jan

For you non-cycling fans, let me expound.

The 2001 Tour was where Lance Armstrong became Lance Armstrong and not just some American who’d won the Tour. Yeah, there was the whole cancer survivor thing, but 1999 and 2000 had been kind of weak tours overall. Armstrong taking those two – sure, the kid’s got potential, but let’s get him some real competition, and he’ll crack.

In 2001, the whole cycling world was in pretty good shape (at least they thought), Armstrong hadn’t had the best off-season, and all the big guns were firing. Stage 10 ended atop l’Alpe d’Huez, a classic climb. After bluffing like he was struggling up an earlier mountain in the stage, Armstrong and Ullrich were in the second group on the final climb, trailing Joseba Beloki (who biffed hard on a downhill in a later tour, breaking his pelvis and essentially ending his career) and Christophe Moreau, who at one time was the next great French Cyclist, and has since been replaced at least twice).

About 10 minutes from the finish, Armstrong looks over his shoulder, locks eyes with the German, and then ups his cadence and pulls ahead without breaking more of a sweat. On TV, it couldn’t have been clearer – Armstrong was looking to see what Ullrich had left, and inviting him to bring it. When he launched, Armstrong was gone and Ullrich didn’t even flinch.

In short order, Lance passes the two leaders, and wins the stage, takes a commanding lead in the Tour, and leaves no doubt that Americans, for the entire 20th century and into the 21st, have always been better at kicking butt in France than anyone.

Until that point, Armstrong, while surely to be listed among the best riders to win the Tour, hadn’t really established himself as a Great. With the Look, with the win on l’Alpe, and several other wins that year, Armstrong pedaled into legend.

In any case, the same look is what my lovely wife flashed me as we hit the smaller of the two hills approaching the house. And, like Ullrich, all I could do was sit there and take it.

Plus, I didn’t want to ralph delicious Kona Ice Cream.

So, I ended up with 2 hours of running (give or take), an hour on the bike, and no swim, but an hour in the bath. Close enough.

The old Trek frame and fork is repainted. I took both down to bare metal with aircraft stripper, steel wool, and elbow grease. The “aircraft stripper” is extremely important – I tried some other stuff from WalMart, and it worked like crap. Picked up the right stuff at Auto Zone, and the paint peeled off. The other trick is to only work a small part at a time – coat a tube, wait 15 minutes, rub off the paint, and move to another tube. If you don’t the stripper and paint dry back to the frame, and more stripper is required to get it loose.

Washed both with water. Primed both with auto primer, and sealed with primer sealer. I painted the fork using auto paint – it looks GRATE! The frame I did with Rust-Oleum, since I wanted a nice, bright blue, and there wasn’t auto paint in that color. Doesn’t look bad, but not quite so flash as the fork. I’ve hung both of them in the space with the furnace – warm, low humidity, should cure the paint really well. Later this week, I’ll smooth out any runs with fine grain sandpaper, and put on auto clearcoat. Should work fine.

In the future, though, I’ll probably try one of those places that strip and do Imron for $150 + shipping – this has been a PITA.

Is what Houston Bill would be calling New England Bill. (New England Bill would counter “lardass”, but that’s neither here nor there)

Why all the harshing? ‘Cause today was hot. Seems like we jumped straight into summer. Lunchtime run was 5 miles in about 43 minutes in a temp of about 80 degrees. I wanted to do the 5.4 that I did last Tuesday, but the relative heat really did a number on me. Blah. Still it’s a 5 mile run at better than a 9 minute pace, so I’ll keep it. ‘Especially since I’ve only got 4 days left to run 15 miles to hit 20 for the week.

Tuesday was a rest day after Monday’s bike ride. As pumped as I was after the ride, I didn’t realize how much it’d taken out of me until I started waking up Tuesday morning. I wasn’t sore, just really, really tired. I grabbed a decent breakfast (coffee and granola bars), and headed out the door. By 10 I was starving. Like crazy hungry. I was hungry all day – must have really tapped into fat stores by pressing past my typical endurance threshold and going about 90 minutes instead of my regular 40. Again, I wasn’t sore, per se, but I was starved. I did avoid the monster, though.

Five is still the new three – today’s run, while tough, was not a huge stretch. Tough, but just right.

Responses: Jon – I do the shorts and jersey for much the same reason I do running shorts and shoes when I run. Good gear takes away at least one excuse. I do not, however, go whole hog for current team kit. Why? ‘Cause I’m cheap. I’ve got a couple of beer jerseys, a UTexas jersey (family connections, not that I went there), and a couple of jerseys from the team I rode with in Houston. I am, however, thinking of picking up a Kappa/Saeco 2004 jersey –
1) It’s got trucker chicks on the sleeves
2) Saeco makes coffee makers. I like coffee
3) I was a Kappa (frat boy) in college
4) Cippolini rode for Saeco. Gilberto Simeoni rode for Saeco. Cunego rode for Saeco.
5) My shiny road bike is a Cannondale
6) Saeco’s not sponsoring the team any more, so it’s like a Houston .45’s or Brooklyn Dodgers jersey.
7) Did I mention they make coffee makers?

Susan rocks. Running to the gym is oh-so-much-cooler than driving. (But driving still beats the snot out of sitting on the couch)

Warren – I’m pretty aggressive about “On your left”-ing as appropriate. And as a rule, I avoid “multi-use” paths when cycling. Multi-use is f’n hazardous, especially when you’re talking orders of magnitude differences in speed such as between bikes and runners/walkers especially. My gripe was about peds randomly wandering off the sidewalk onto an actual street, like in a downtown kind of area. In the case of your running group, a stick to the spokes (of the rear wheel for safety’s sake) would likely be appropriate if there was no warning.

Chris – sucks to be you :). Lance? I’m really not disappointed that he’s retiring. He won the Tour six times. As I see it, he had two choices: retire, or go completely psycho this year and next and try to do a year in the mold of Eddy Merckx, trying to win everything from the spring Classics to the Giro, the Tour, and the Vuelta. While I am completely amazed at his drive and success, and could care two shakes if he’s really a jerk or not, and admire his contributions both to the cancer community and cycling in general, Armstrong’s continued presence in cycling brings the words of Kevin Costner in Bull Durham to mind: “Strikeouts are boring, and besides that they’re facist. Throw some ground balls. They’re more democratic.” What that means, I don’t know, but it seems appropriate.

Tyler – Frankly, this breaks my heart. First, it took the USADA way to long to rule on the case. Second, there’s a decent amount of dissent to his 2 year suspension. BUT on the whole issue of doping, I’m completely in favor of failing really conservative. IMO, it’s better to ban some innocents with freaky blood from sport than to risk letting some cheats through. Yeah. Register all the mutants. In any case, it’s not like sport is something that requires equal access – by definition, almost everyone in the world is excluded from being a professional athlete by some genetic reason. I’d still like to think that Tyler is innocent – I cannot fathom someone making as big a deal out of charitable foundations as he or Lance do, hold himself out as a poster child for youth racing, etc, and risk staining all the people he touches by cheating. Call me naive, but people that evil just do not exist in my America.

Lee – Sorry for leaving you out. Warren’s really got me thinking about the whole ped thing and wondering if I’ve been one of those riders who turn people off from cycling. And I really hope not.

He’s completely right, though, that the responsibility for looking out and avoiding conflict really does fall on the cyclist. I don’t know that you need baseball cards in your spokes, or a bell or horn, but do be vocal early. And I’d even recommend taking some time to learn how to jump curbs, ride on grass/gravel/dirt, and even practice taking a dive off the bike at a decent speed to avoid hitting pedestrians.

TTFN!