Other blogs don't have shit on my blog.

If you think my blog is rambling and ultimately a little unsatisfying in the humor column, check this blog out: We Have a Better Blog.

It'll be sure to make mine look funny.

Home for the holidays

Well I've been home for over a week, and I finally finished off everything from this past semester. Needed to turn in a homework and submit my portion of a group paper... all done now though.

This spring I'll still be in State College, working at the Facilities Institute, doing database type work in support of their maintenance of PennDot buildings across the state. They basically catalog absolutely every detail about a building, and come up with a ratio of what its worth to what it would cost to fix it. Basically rating what building needs funding first. Real fun right? Not really, but it'll keep me paid, in State College, and still a full time student... which is important because I'll have health insurance, and can race my bike for the blue and white one more time.

Speaking of the bike... I've been puttinig in some more hours in the saddle. anywhere from 10-15 hours a week the past few weeks. I'll be putting in a few monster days tomorrow, taking a little tour of the Hudson Valley region... if the weather holds.

Also been picking up some other things from home... playing the piano and reading more. Hopefully I'll be doing more of both this next semester. Once I figure out a cheap way to record stuff I'll throw some tunes up here too.

Happy Holidays.

Posted...Keep Out... No Problem!

I've noticed that while riding around Central Pa, a lot of shoddy run down homes in poor areas have lots of posted signs. KEEP OUT! Don't come knocking at my trailer park door, son! Most of these places resemble the picture above... who would want to go down there? It looks like the apocalypse might be down that private road- I'm not ready to be judged yet. Most of these signs are relatively unneeded.

Even better are the handmade signs along people's driveways that say "No Turning Around". Most of these you can't actually see until you've pulled into the driveway already. then what... I'm just supposed to pull out the same way!? "Shit, I didn't see that sign, I'll have to keep on going down the wrong way until I find a more friendly driveway owner". Lots of wear and tear on your driveway there buddy...

End of the semester

Well I'm busy as hell with tons of projects and homework and stuff at the end of the semester, but make sure you don't move to Cherry Tree, Pa. I mean... I might expect that from Wyoming or something, can you be serious?

Cellphone goodbyes...

I realized the other day that everyone seems to have their own style on the phone. I'm sure we've all done the interruption game... taking turns mistakenly interrupting the other person- ya know pretending like we're on Fox News or CNN or something.

Even more awkward than that, though, is trying to remember what kind of goodbye each person uses. Some people seem to be cool with just leaving it with "talk to ya later", and then hanging up. The odd thing is if you try and sneak a "bye" in after that, and they don't respond.... they were just in the act of hanging up right? It's not like they ignored my "bye". Or how about the:

Person 1: "goodnight"
Person 2: "talk to you later"
Person 1: "ok"
Person 2: "bye"
Person 1: thinking...what the hell, do I need to say goodbye AGAIN?

I mean... jeez how many times do you need to say, allright- this conversation is done. I'm almost to the point where I need something in my phonebook that reminds me that, hey the person I'm talking to is just a "talk to you later" person. I need not try and say goodbye after we say "talk to you later". But maybe it's just me.

PEACE.

Novel Searching.

I need some suggestions for some readin'. I don't want to read some sappy family saga drama though. Right now I'm reading about Krakatoa... volcano near Indonesia (west coast of Java) that blew to high hell in 1883. Sort of a cool read so far.
But seriously. send me some good books you've read. Fiction preferred... need some fictional stories in my life right now. Whitman, ShoJo... don't send shit about Playboy or anything with pop-up graphics.

Applications....

I finally submitted all my online applications... $400 worth. Applied to 7 schools.

1.UCI
2.UCD
3.RPI
4.VT
5.PSU
6.UDel
7.UConn

Still have to make sure all the recommendations make it there on time, and send out some transcripts and some essays which I have already written. So just a little more leg work, then I can sit back and wait for the rejection letters to pile up.

After living in State College for the last 5 years, I think I'd like to check out the urban scene for a while. Too bad I didn't factor that too much into my school choices. UCI is near LA. Sweet... LA rocks if you like smog. UCD is near SanFran. That'd probably be cooler. Other than that though... I'm looking at crappy 2nd tier cities or State College equivalents. Sucks... why can't there be any cool places in Boston, DC, San Diego? Ok there are good schools there, but MIT? Let's be serious. I don't think I could stand NYC- no place near enough to ride, and I also don't know if they have any good programs there.

On the way home for Thanksgiving I'll be stopping by Cornell, which I decided not to apply to afterall, and then RPI the next day. Can't wait for this semester to be over with.

Think I'm ready to ride outside again...

Hopefully I'm ready for an hour's ride outside.... this is the last ride I did... on the rollers. Avg power of 216W. I could easily do a ride outside and average far less than that.

Yea... the zero power in the midde was me falling off. Still can't ride with no hands on rollers. Oh well.

Sleep

The only reason I've been able to sleep this week.

Lance's new position

Lance's new position looks to be immitating Landis's TT position... all upright and shit.

PowerTap

I sort of used the PowerTap. Here is my first "ride"... 20 min jaut on the trainer which started out shitty but my knee felt better after I warmed up. Hopefully this trend will continue when I try and ride...gasp... outside tomorrow.

Serfas

usually suck, but these rock.
I'm going to buy some and then join a U2 fangroup.

Knee issues take 2

So my left knee has been bugging me since early September when I borrowed a friend's fixed gear to commute to campus a few times. I'm not sure what was going through my head, but I borrowed it because I had traded commuters with another friend so I could use his track bike to race the track. I might be the stupidest person I know. Cross season was the first victim of my stupidity, so I sold the Redline that never quite fit me right anyway. I'll get a Cannondale next year, if I'm healthy then. But my main concern is the fact that I'm supposed to start putting miles in on my road bike the 2nd week of November for the collegiate season. I'd also like to be hitting the gym now.

Well I've been doing PT for three weeks, and just had my 2nd appointment with the most incompetent sounding doctor I've ever hearrd. Got an MRI ordered this time though, hitting that tube of fun up tomorrow morning. Hopefully that will shed some light into what is going on, and I can get in to see one of the more knee specalists there and try and fix my second knee.

Seriously, if you have a fixed gear, I might break it when I see you next. No joking.

Naked Men...

I'm taking racquetball this semester. As I soon realized you get quite sweaty playing racquetball in those small stuffy courts. So after every class I hit up the locker room to change before heading out to my other two classes. First off you should not schedule normal classes right after Kines classes. Stupid mistake.

My beef starts in the locker room. Why do old men feel the need to prance around naked? Now if they didn't have a towel handy while changing, that's cool. But walking around the locker room naked with a towel hanging around your shoulders is just unacceptable. Even better are the old men who feel the need to weigh themselves while butt naked. All of these men are overweight. Is the quarter pound towel really going to break your goal for that day? I've done a little data collection and I've found that there is a one to one linear relationship between how overweight the dude is and how willing he is to walk around naked in the locker room:
I must share, though that my most traumatic naked man incident did not occur at the IM building this semester. And no it not feature Joe Whitman. A few summers ago my boss at my co-op also frequented the locker room where I showered after doing noon-time workouts on the bike. One time he happened to be there after doing a jog on his lunch break and he flagged me down and gave me some things to do that afternoon... all while butt naked in the middle of the locker room. I had a towel on. I sort of felt like I should have taken it off and just let her fly out there in the air. Am I alone on this? Towels are there for a reason.

New Commuter....

Well I decided to go the much easier route to get a new bike to kick around town with. Lady called into the shop the other day. She was cleaning out a shed in the back of a place she rents. Had a few bikes there she wanted to get rid of. One was a Schwinn Varsity. Some other junk with some duct taped stems. But there was also a 97-98 Trek VW Mtn bike. 19". 7 speeds. So I fixed her up a bit, and will have all the parts I need once I get some stuff off my old mountain bike that was junked together from freezethaw two years ago. I haven't ridden since I almost died riding it (wasn't my dumbass fault that time though) because it's an absolute piece of shit. But the cranks/BB are good, as is the front wheel, and that's all I need to get this thing running. Maybe a 7 speed cassette too. Those aren't too spendy though.

Yeah. so it's purple... can't really tell in the picture. But it'll take some fat tires and fenders, so this will work all winter long baby. Sahweet.

Also had another idea regarding switching bikes around. I think I'm going to use my old race bike, Ti Airborne Zepplin, as my new TT rig, and sell the Nova (current gay looking yellow TT frame) on eBay. I think the better fork and stiffness of the Zepplin outweigh (pun fully intended) the weight savings of the Nova (Al) over the Zepplin(Ti). So... look out ECCC, I'm going to have a Titanium time trial bike. That kid must be really fucking fast. He has flames anodized onto his Ti TT frame!


Going to put some more flames running down the downtube, and then something where the bike brand would normally go. Ideas are welcome. Stud has already been considered and is likely. Chrono is also up in the running. Maybe I'll figure out how to do those voting online things and we can have a slugfest, and maybe JUST MAYBE Steven Colbert will find out about this and ramsack my election and I'll have to write something like "Colbert" on my bike. That would make my day.

Forks aren't supposed to bend like this...

I finally sold the Redline cross frameset, but I was oh so very close to ruining the frame, and my body, before ever selling it...

I was riding down the sidewalk next to College Ave near Hout's on my Fuji commuter, holding the Redline in my left hand. A car looked like it was about to pull in front of me, so I went to hit the brake with my right hand. Now... I have my brakes crossed up, so this was my front brake. I looked down at the caliper to see it engage the wheel, and then move forward, because it was loosening up off the nut, and then give way. So I immediately loose all braking power and am just coasting. The car doesn't pull in front of me... it sees me coming and is waiting, but it doens't matter because I never made it as far as the car. My front caliper swings once or twice in front of my bike, and I'm thinking... shit I got to stop and catch that thing, so I take my right hand off the bar and try and reach for the other brake, which I can't get with my left hand becuase I'm holding the frame that I'm on my way to sell!! But before I reach that brake...

Boom. caliper runs inbetween some spokes, and completly jams up my front end. Bike flips over. Somehow I manage to jump off my moving bike (around 10-15mph) and land, running, in the middle of the traffic lane of College Ave. Now thankfuly there are no cars in College, just that one car looking to turn onto it. Well that car waits a second, sees that I'm still living, and takes off. I slowly collect the fact that I'm the luckiest piece of shit roadie ever. If I were some BMX or mountain biking fiend, then that would be a cool dismount, but hell, I shave my legs. I never run off my bike while it's doing flips underneath me, and not while I'm holding a frameset in the other hand!!

So... damage to the bike: The fork is absolutely fucked. As you can see in the pictures below both blades are bent back, and obviously not planar anymore. Riding the bike now is interesting... getting out of the saddle is out of the question. I ordered a new fork for it with cantilever brake mounts, and I got some braze-ons for the back that I'm going to weld on. I'll have to remove the bridge in the back that supports the seat stays and replace it with a bridge further up, or a plate up by the seatpost. So basically I'll have a single speed cross bike. Schweet. I'll post some more about the construction of this later on...

Check out the fork... and how close the front wheel comes to the downtube....




This picture is square on from the side of the bike. You can clearly see the bend in the fork, and the fact that the blades are no where near planar anymore. Sahweet. Maybe I can make a toilet paper roll holder out of this fork.

The paint came off the part of the fork that was put under tension. The front wheel here is very close to being in dish, so you can tell that the fork is really out of wack.... The metal stretched out causing the paint to flake off. The paint is fine on the front end of the frame, and nothing indicates that the frame was effected at all.




Another shot of the paint off the fork blades, and my extremly clean braking surface.

Good vibrations

I'm sitting in class the other day and someone's phone starts to vibrate. Ya know, that quiet reminder that everyone in the room can hear. Now I know full well that my phone is turned on silent. But as the vibrating noise is heard for the third time I reach down just to make sure. Open up my phone carrier thing on my Timbuk2 bag, and nope, not me. But right when I reach down the noise stops. The teacher looks at me. What!? seriously man it wasn't me!! So now I'm trying to find a pencil or pen or something I can pull from my bag to say, "see... here! that's what I was reaching for, not my phone!". But I got nothing, so I go up empty handed, taking the blame for the phone noise. That got me thinking.

We have custom ringtones. Why not custom vibrators? Now I know the ladies out there are saying, "hell yea!! I want some custom vibrating action." But seriously. If you could also program your phone to tap out some simple rhythm, then you'd know if its your phone right away. Now certainly this wouldn't matter if you had the phone in a pocket, as you'd feel it right away, but with everyone putting phones in bags and stuff, it's really hard to tell who is vibrating and who isn't. So here is my challenge to the cell phone companies out there: get me a phone with some customizable vibration action.

No more Ivan with CSC

Well the breakup with Ivan Basso and CSC finally officially occurred today. I figured this one had to be coming since reports were circulating ever since the Tour that Basso and Riis were not talking at all. Ivan has been in contact with Discovery Channel and Team Milram. I can't see how Discovery would ever sign him. Doping has been a problem that has not been much of an issue for Discovery, and I would hope they would want to keep it that way. I'd also feel really bad for Levi if they added Basso. Levi would still be a prominent rider for them, but I don't think he'd get the same 100% support at the Tour that he is likely to enjoy if he is the sole leader. I'm not even sure Basso is going to make much more noise at the Tour anyway...

Basso is going to have a quiet future. He'll join a team, and race without doping... which for him means getting dropped on the climbs that he had enjoyed success on before. I hope to see Ivan go to the Tour next year with Milram, be in the top 5 or so going into some mountain stage, and loose 10 minutes. Then of course NOT gain 9 back the next day by injecting testosterone directly into his testicles.

I'll be happy this Spring racing in the Men's B field in the ECCC, as I'll know that no one there is doping.

Energy Consumption... by States

I'm taking an online Energy course, EGEE 101. It's basically the easiest thing I've done here at PSU, and keeps me full time. Anyway, I came across this graph below (originally shown without the colors) that shows total energy use, and energy use normalized to population.

I realize you can't read anything in the image above, but if you click it it will come up full size, and should be readable. The first graph is the total energy per state. As you can see the red/blue (as defined by 2000 Election) is relatively well spread out. But the second graph is the energy use normalized to the population, basically how much energy is used by each individual person in those states (the black one is the US average). The first 16 states went to Bush. 16 states! These weren't the states that were close either, these were the blowout states of Texas and the midwest. Ya know, the ones they colored in about three weeks before the election. What does this tell us? Republicans use more power than Democrats? Not exactly, but it's interesting to see that the Republican dominated states are much less energy conscious. Now certainly places like Alaska have the fact that they are constantly heating their homes, which is a huge part of personal energy use. Other than that though, you have 15 states in the main body of the country that says, hey... the hell with you, i'm burning some oil in my front yard in a large barrel and you can't stop me, and I'm going to vote for child molesters.

Ohio and back

Took a little road trip out to Columbus, OH this weekend to visit Karin and my brother Todd, and my niece Cheyan. 18 months old, seriously coolest baby ever. She knows most of her colors... though most of them are usually "yeah-yo" until you tell her to guess again.

Here is a picture of me helping her pump up Dad's wheels before his cross race:


And a picture of us hanging out in the car



I drove back to Happy Valley Monday morning after the weekend and was pretty freeking tired. Stopped at a gas station that had a Starbucks attatched, and got a coffee and a lemon pound cake thing. When I went up to order, I asked for a "large coffee and a slab of the lemon pound cake". The recently employed hippy looking no good cashier looked at me and said, "You want a venti?" I just looked at her.... I wanted to say "I don't want a large Farva, I want a litre cola." But I felt like she wouldn't get that one. I just nodded.

A Venti? Are you freeking kidding me? Your company is from Seattle, shut the hell up venti. Is that italian? Starbucks? Quit it with your stupid sizes.

Bored in Engl202C

This is how much I care about Engl202C (Technical Communcation)

how about those geography skills. Don't be jealous. And yes I know I re-drew the Maine/Canada border a bit... but seriously... who cares, some moose?

Riding

Took an hour cruise around Centre County this afternoon. Knee felt pretty freeking allright for the first time in a few weeks. So hopefully the 6 advil a day and icebag of frozen corn is helping. Definetly going to keep a low profile until mid-November though, when I hope to start piling on the base miles and lifting. Maybe I'll have a powertap and a new CAAD9 frame by then... that'd be pretty sweet.

Also found out that my helium wheels I got at the swap are pretty f'ed up. I heard that some tubular helium rims had a problem with the nipples pulling through the rim, and upon close inspection the rim definelty has a lot of little micro-cracks (like the technical jargon?). So.... eBay! Fucking swap meets... good and bad. Just have to be careful... wrap it up.

Lehigh Valley Swap

Woke up at a brisk 4AM to head out to Lehigh Valley for the Fall Velodrome Swap. I packaged up a bunch of my junk to try and sell. Ended up parting with about 40 bucks worth of stuff I won't be needing. Spent most of the time working for the shop selling bikes and gloves and stuff. Big catch of the day.... 90 dollar pair of Mavic Heliums! Not bad! I'll probably use them as a low weight road race wheel set (ie when I don't want to use the front carbone/powertap) and then for cross next fall. Sahweet. Netted about 30 bucks, Mavic Heliums, and an Ultegra crankset which I realize I probably won't need when I buy this before cross next year:
I am looking forward to cross in the fall, but most of all I'm just hoping that I can put in all the training that time allows for this spring. Getting sick of injuries piling up. Therefore I will be wearing kneepads 24/7. And to answer your question Whitman, no.

Study Day

Well I took the GREs today, and I sucked it up. I don't think it'll kill me for most of my schools, but doesn't help my case for reaching for places like RPI or Cornell. I was especially pissed because I never really had trouble with the timing while practicing, but I pretty much screwed it up on the real thing. The problems were getting harder and harder, which is a good thing if you know how the GRE works, but I only had 6 seconds for the last question, and just guessed without even reading the whole question. Blows. I must have missed about 3-4 questions. I don't think I'll take it again though, time is pretty short and I'll still be able to get into a decent enough program I hope.

Also finally got a Dr. appointment for my left knee problems. Penn State Orthopedics..got in about three weeks sooner than at University Orthopedics. Freeking a man... I need to be better by mid-November to start putting some base miles in. Hopefully I can get some good tips to help get this taken care of as soon as possible.

Applied for a few spring internships too. One in State College, and one in Allentown with Air Products. I'm hoping to land something for Spring and Summer, and register the spring section as an offical internship with PennState...so I can race! I might have to register the whole thing as an internship and graduate at the end of the summer, but we'll see. Push comes to shove I'll just do an internship for the spring and work at the shop again this summer and race on my PSU CAAD9 as much as possible. I'm looking forward to that thing now... reallly looking forward to that.

GRE + Grad Schools

Well time off the bike has to be filled with something... and for the last few weeks it's been practice GRE tests and grad school hunting. After talking to professors and a bit of web searching my list is, in somewhat of a semblence of order:

1. RPI
2. Cornell
3. Virginia Tech
4. Penn State
5. UConn
6. Univ Central Florida
7. Case Western

I'm looking to get into a program where I can specalize in fuel cell technology. I really dig the elective I'm taking on the topic this semester, and I think it's a cool new wave of the future... as long as we can figure out how to get some hydrogen without raping the Earth.

I'm taking the GRE's on Friday... all the way down in Harrisburg, the closest testing center to State College. I'm not too worried about them, as I've done as much practice as possible. For those familar with the test I keep screwing up those damn quantitative questions dealing with the graphs or figures. I don't know why, I guess I'll just have to make sure to take enough time and not rush through those. Everything is pretty easy, you just have to figure out the easy way to think through the problems.

I'm getting pretty close to having the cash for the PowerTap. I have about 400 on hand, will be getting 130 from my security deposit (and another 130 once I keep threatening legal action) and whatever my Redline cross frame gets on eBay. I'm hoping to get at least 350. Hopefully I'll get the PowerTap and can put it to good use right away. Also trying to put some cash away for a CAAD9 PSU custom painted frameset for 375. That would rock... need to get some paychecks for that though...

And one more note, the party was off the hook. Thanks for those that showed up, and thanks to those who got girls to walk all the way from Burrowes. Clutch. Look for another 1105 bash when the weather is warm again... it's not an indoor party kind of place. This weekend we'll be crashing our neighbors party though, feel free to join us.

Cross delays...

Well cross hasn't started yet... at least for me. Went out on a 2 hour easy ride on the cross bike a few weeks back before a cross clinic I was really looking forward to. Unfortunately I tweeked my left knee pretty good. I think it was a combination of commuting a fixed gear for a few days, and the q-factor being off on the cross bike. Seriously people, check to make sure you're not an idiot like me and that you don't have a 113 BB in there... piece of junk. Been hitting the ice and advil like it's my job for the last few weeks... and finally today I went out for my first real easy road ride that didn't want to make my cry when I got home. Schwell.

Other goings on... finally got a list set for grad schools I'll be applying for. Somewhat in order of preference: RPI, Cornell, PennState, Virginia Tech, UConn, UCF, Case Western, UDelaware. That's a whole lot of application fees. I'm also saving up for a PowerTap SL. Also throwing down for an extra receiver for the TT bike, so no matter where I go, I'll be dishing out the power. In a months time or so expect to see an influx in the number of graphs that correspond to my base training on this site.

Other than that, normal last semester at school. Trying to land an internship of some sort that will keep me in State College and as a full time student. Trying to find a paid one, but one without money is cool too... keep me insured and racing my bike.

One final item: party at 1105 West Beaver Ave on Saturday. Come on down. Keg of yuenling, some imports, some domestics, and some high school chicks. Rockin'

My first MTB race... or was it a cross race?

I skipped out on the XC course this past Saturday, saving the demo bike from further damage. Instead of racing I slept in and iced my knee which was bugging the heck out of me. I was relieved to see a bunch of bruises surface on it though, confirming that it was likely just inflammation that was causing the pain and not anything more serious in the joint. I felt a lot better by Sunday and decided to do the Short Track Cross Country race (STXC).

Now I haven't even raced my cross bike in a cross race yet. I haven't even really taken many turns at speed or done much technical riding at all on it. So this was quite an intro to handling a bike at speed offroad. One turn was about 160 degrees, and thankfully somebody had worn out a New Jersey style jughandle to make the turn easier to take (not necessarily faster). The other dangerous turn was a pretty fast turn covered in gravel. I fell in both of those spots once on the course, and possibly twice at the sharp turn, I don't remember. I made up a lot of ground on the smoother sections of course on the parking lot and along the top of the course though. I felt bad about crashing in front of people, especially Matlin who I would pass a few times and get passed back due to my being on the ground. It all ended up well and dandy though, with Chris Ruhl taking off by himself and lapping almost the whole field, some UMass kid getting 2nd, and myself taking 3rd. Matlin was not far behind in 5th. Good start to my cross season. I think I'll consider this race a cross race without any barriers.

Looking forward to this weekend which should feature my first real cross training. Ry Leech and some other fast dudes are putting on a cross clinic, and I intend to soak up as much cross knowledge as possible.

Mountain Biking is hard.

I went out to Rothrock to test out the XC course today after class on the shop's Epic demo. Full suspension means I'll go fast right? Goddamn mountain biking is hard. First thing I noticed right off is that you need a lot more arm strength than road riding. Pushing and pulling that front end around is a lot more effort than even wacking my bars around in a sprint on the road. I progressively took better lines through obstacles while doing the technical loop on the course. I got to a point where I figured if I were lucky I'd probably be able to ride all the level rock gardens during the race. I handled the steep rocky downhill section a lot better than I thought I would. I just placed my nuts all the way behind the saddle and tried to touch the brakes only when I really needed to, which was most of the time. I did sucessfully hold a front wheelie for what seemed like 10 feet, but I'm sure was closer to 2 feet, over one of the steeper sections. Endoing on that descent would fucking hurt.

Speaking of endoing....I was riding the smooth back section of the course and being a bit lazy taking my lines through things when I pulled my front wheel up onto a large rock thinking I'd just ride over it. Well it was steep as shit on the other side and I quickly found myself flying over my bike. Fucking a. Bust up both of my knees and must have landed oddly on my left hand because it's sore as hell. I noticed later on that my right knee is swollen pretty bad, pretty near to my surgical site... not a good memory. I'm not sure if I'll race tomorrow at this point, I'm sure it'd be fun, but I don't want to push myself if I'm swollen for a race that ultimately doesn't mean much to me.... props to mountain bikers, that shit is hard. I had fun when I took good lines through the gardens, but I really don't see myself consistently going out to Rothrock with the desire to beat the shit out of myself.

Last Bikereg Transaction until March

Andy Munas (notice which way he is eating the bananna), Ben Smith, a WVU rider Geoff Moy and I descended on Waitsfield, VT for the Green Mountain Stage Race.

The first stage was a hillclimb up past our humble abode of a ski lodge, to the top of "App Gap". The 3 race featured such exciting features as a nasty wreck in the fast "neutral" section and yours truly getting dropped from the leaders relatively quickly to end up in 78th. Geoff notched the biggest gain by getting 6th, while Munas was up there in the points as well. Ben featured pretty well in the 4s, somewheres in the teens. The juniors were fast as fuck, and the triathlete chicks who were climbing up the climb were hot.

Second day was a rolling circuit race. I got dropped right off the back on the feedzone climb on the first lap. I worked up into the field after a few miles thanks to the help from my brother's buddy Kyle from ECV. Each sucessive lap I got dropped less than the previous, so I was able to catch back on after the climb on the last lap relatively easily. When I got up to the front, there was a group off the front who was looking to soak up the 100pt finish bouns from the field, and my bitch Andy. So I worked with the guys in the front as much as I could. Did a few turns and the group came back somewhat. On another little riser before the finish I had trouble staying in the group, and it was all I could do to finish with the group at that point. Andy snagged a 10th place for the ever important 1 bonus point to go with the 100 finish points that stemmed from that group getting caught riiiight on the line. Geoff got dropped, as the 70 or so miles seemed to take their toll, but Ben finished up in the points again to keep his spot on GC in his race.

Third day was a nightmarish road race, on a good day. On a bad day it was freeking fun, but painful. We started in 50 degrees and pouring rain. The course featured three climbs, with the last being an absolute beast with pitches up to 24%. I thought I flatted on the flat sections before the first climb, so I stopped and got a front 404. Really I just wanted to be like Munas though, as he had broken a spoke the day before and sported the Zipp then. Motorpacing back to the group is fun, and highly reccomended. So of course on the first climb I got dropped, but descended like a son-of-a-bitch and made it back to the albeit slow moving field before the real fireworks went off. I managed to get up to Munas and Geoff and made sure they didn't need anything. Once again I got dropped on the first hints of uphillness leading up to the final two climbs. I was impressed with my effort anyway though, as I paced myself up the whole last part of the course, slowing picking off everyone I got within sight, and was only passed on the climb by some 40+ finishers who were duking out the finish.

I think I picked up a bug from somewhere on that rainy day though, as I was in absolutely no condition to race the next morning. I literatlly was running to the bathroom every 10 minutes in the morning. So I packed up my stuff and went up to the big city to watch the boys crit race. Ben was feeling allright in his race, but got caught in a crash and possibly fucked up his carbon stays. Geoff had some trouble from the getgo with a bad start and apparent lack of motivation in crits, while Munas stuck it in the group to finish off the day.

Then we drove a quarter way down the eastern seaboard to go to classes. I'm looking forward to collegiate season again...

GRE

Eariler in the summer I scheduled the GRE Exam for Monday, 8/28. I heard from my parents that the GRE people called on Saturday to let me know that my test has been cancelled. I'll need to call and reschedule tomorrow, when I call in and bitch at them. I'm not sure when I'll be able to take it now, seeing as I'll be gone later this week racing in Vermont, and then classes start soonafter that. They don't have any tests during the weekend, so what sort of problem do you run into on a Saturday that you didn't know about on Friday? I'm also pretty worked up about it because this same thing has happened to other people as well, so this isn't an isolated case.

I really feel like checking into what it would take to start my own test center in State College. Set it up with the standarized testing companies, get a small buisness loan to cover the rent and computer crap, and hire up a few dorky computer kids. I think I'd make a killing doing the GREs, MCATs, LSATs..etc.. all of which I believe you need to travel a good distance to take. Maybe that'd be a good part-time gig if I were to do the teaching route. Freekin-a.

Christiana

Christiana didn't start out better than anything else this summer, but it ended with a bang.

Saturday:

Road Race:
I was feeling pretty good all day in the field. Much much more comfortable than last year when I got shelled out of the 3/4 field on the first climb of the first lap. This time I used the climb to move up in position, and kept my ground for most of the course, usually loosing a little bit in the beginnings of a windy section. On the 4th time up the climb we caught the remnants of the women's race, which made things really complicated. I was chugging along on the climb, surrounded by people as usual, when I realized that me and the few guys around me had gotten dropped, and were surrounded by girls. Now usually this wouldn't bother me, but right then I wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing. Not a huge deal, did a little bit more work than I would have liked, but made the gap up relatively easily. Had to chase back on at the same spot on the final lap as well, but that was due to my loosing contact with the first 10 over the climb. So it all regroups, and a pretty large group of about 40 guys is heading into the finishing uphill section, not even a climb. Well I heard a crash behind me, and was happy to be in front of it... but the next crash that took up the entire width of the road was in front of me, and I couldn't quite get around it in time. Had to unclip, cyclocross over some poor bastard with half a face, and finished out of the points. I was feeling good and ready to put the hammer down on the last 300m too... I was only like 6 or 7 guys back. Oh well. No points.

Sunday:

Time Trial:
I thought I would be the only disc wheel fully aeroed out geek in the 4 field, but oh was I wrong. There were some funky stuff out for the 4's, and some other strong TT'ers, which I didn't expect. I finished up 3rd, about 20 seconds off the pace. I think this is a good sign still though. Even though last year I would have won the 4s by a good minute and a quarter. I'm still working on my position, I can get a little lower, and I don't feel as comfortable spinning up hills in my position now as I did last year... I'll be ready to fly by collegiate TT time. So... got some points.

My arms look really high right? Don't worry, I already bought an adjustable stem.

Crit:
I was pretty happy to be sitting top 10 after only scoring in the TT, thanks to the fact that the people who scored in the road race couldn't TT very well. With a good finish, I'd be able to get some GC money. Got a great start, and was 3rd wheel the whole time around the first lap. The first two guys kept switching, and trying to get me to come through, but I just sat on... I'm not going to pull on the first lap numbnuts. Well they both crashed out... first and second guys through the last turn on the first lap.



suckers. I stayed at the front as much as I could during the whole race. I felt pretty crappy in parts, letting some gaps go, but was lucky enough to always have someone next to me that was willing to close it down, and I was able to recover. The junior Polish kid took off with a few laps to go- I didn't even see him go. I just noticed that the kid who looked like was getting lapped had the pace car in front of him for a whole lap... hmmm. I moved up on the technical part on the backside, and was in a pretty good spot for the last turn. I took it pretty far inside, and started my sprint from a ways back. My legs felt much better than I anticipated and I took about 10 or 15 guys in that last uphill straight to get 6th.

Those placings on Sunday were good enough for 4th overall. Look out GMSR! You best be careful for the kid with the big quads going backwards fast on the hills, don't get caught behind me.

Doylestown

This Sunday was a circuit race out in Doylestown that a bunch of PSU folk made it out to. I did the 3/4, and felt pretty comfortable in the rolling course for the first two laps. At some point a break of two riders had a relatively significant lead, so I decided to jump across. I did so a lot more easily than I thought I should have been able to, and the reason for that become apparent quite quickly. The first time I went to pull through they both yelled up to me to ease up. Are you serious? Jesus, I just bridged up to you dudes and you can't sit on? So you can guess how that break ended up... As we were being caught another group of two tookoff, and I decided to give it a shot again. This time the other two guys were much stronger, and were taking some long hard pulls. I did my best to match their pace, but found it a bit much after about half a lap. Once I dropped from their wheels I glanced back quickly and saw the field, and decided to not kill myself and just wait for them. I didn't realize how far back they really were, or maybe I would have turned myself inside out to stay with the leaders. Turns out that the two stayed away for the win. Johan from Faulkner Honda jumped with 2 to go, and I went up to him and tried to work up to the leaders, but that wasn't shaking. Didn't have much in the tank after all that work, as I just finished up with the field. Legs felt pretty good so I'm looking forward to Christiana next weekend.

Altoona Recap

Well this is a bit late, but I'll recount the Toona race weekend real quick.

The first day is the "race to the corner" circuit race. I felt pretty good the whole race, but should have known better than to try and take it solo down towards the end. But I felt like I was Jens Voight, so I took a good hard flyer off with about 200 or so meters to go before THE TURN. I took the turn with a gap, and held on for the uphill section after it, and after taking the next turn found myself being swarmed by the field already. I rode it in for 65th.

Second day went a bit better. I gunned it on the opening straight to get right to the front. I hung out up there for a few miles, and was being steadily shoved a little further back than I would have liked when I got pushed clear off the road by a kid trying to avoid a dude who dropped his chain. Not much harm done, chased right back to the front, and drilled it as hard as I dared on the first 1/2 of the climb to string out the group. I was hoping to form a small group right from the get go, but thinking about it now, riding tempo, however hard, is not really the way to make a selection even on this "road race" course. I slipped towards the steep KOM and come across behind, but reintegrated with the 2nd group over the top. I did a ton of work, but it was clear we weren't bringing anything more than people who had given up back. I sat in for last kilometer or so and easily took the field sprint to save some face. 19th.

Third day was the crit. I didn't finish this last year so I was hoping to at least do that. I got a second row start spot and took advantage of that to sprint out in the top 10 through the first lap. Certainly a lot easier than being in the back. I routinely moved up on the finishing straight by going real close to the barriers and wide around the uphill turn. About halfway through I got caught behind a crash on the last corner. I had to unclip, and sort of took my time getting back on my bike and snagged a free lap. By this time the field was relatively small so I didn't have any trouble getting back up to the front. I felt pretty good and stayed up there for the rest of the race, but just didn't have the punch to fight for the top spots for the whole last lap. Have to set yourself up first, and then hope you have something left for the sprint, not the other way around. 21st.

All in all a fun weekend. We had what seemed like 10 people staying at our new place, so it was a bit hectic. Again the highlight was Lisa taking 3rd the first two days, and despite a crash in the last corner of the crit, she managed to keep her 3rd place, even though we didn't realize that for a few days after.... oops

Training week + Giro di Coppi

My brother Nick was in town this past week to hang out and ride a lot. And ride a lot we did. It was certainly a big step up in hours from what I've been putting in. The week totalled about 20 hours. Big days were the Tuesday Blackhawk-->MagicMo-->BlackMo mountain spectacular, followed up by the Alexandria-->Speedride century of fun. I felt a lot better than I thought I would after such a week, and was excited to head out to do a rather up and down road race course down in Maryland put on by a team we have both previously ridden for.

The day of racing was started off by Lisa, Nick's wife, trouncing the competition once again to claim her 12th victory of the year. Sandbagger. Nick and I went off a few hours later. I had 50 hilly miles ahead of me whereas Nick had about 75 I believe. I did my best to stay near the front, as I knew splits would occur on the climbs that abound throughout the course. The first lap I worked pretty hard, and was about 10-15th wheel through the uphill finish. The next lap I hung out and saved my energy as much as I could. During the third lap a few breaks started getting small gaps, and I noticed the Coppi guys (who's jersey I was wearing) weren't getting into all of them. So I went up there and the next one that split off without one of us on there I waited for someone else to jump and just rode their wheel up to the break, sucker. I'm not sure why he did it either because he had a guy up there. Anyway we all pulled through once, and then I found myself first into a relatively hard corner into a narrow uphill road. I looked back and our gap was pretty small, so I decided to see if I could get just one or two of the guys to come with me and attacked pretty hard through the corner. Noone came up, and I was alone up there with a gap I couldn't hold for the 20 or so miles left in the race, so I just rode up the climb steadily and reintegrated into the group. After that I recovered as best I could and stayed in the top quarter of the now relatively small field. Two guys jumped where I had the previous lap, and they ended up staying away. I was right there, but I was like... oh oh! not doing that again. Oh well. Came time for the uphill sprint and I had jack, so I just rode it in for what is a respectable 23rd, considering how many miles I put in this week.

Nick also put in a great ride to pull out a 12th in the Pro 1,2 race. Nice way to break in the new carbon race hoops. Didn't see much of the race, but it was splintered to all hell on the last lap. Two places out of the money... d'oh.

So now it's time to eat pasta and take it easy this week... Toona coming up, gotta score a point.

Hummelstown + SRAM

I went out to do the former Harrisburg Honda Crit, now held in Hummelstown, Pa. I did the 3/4 field in hopes that I would really dig deep and stay in, which would be some great preparation for Toona's technical crit.

I got a horrible start, and was chasing from the get go. The very first straight on the course necks down into a tight left hander which was a clusterfuck. I came close to trackstanding (although it was nothing compared to Norristown). By the time I came around to top off lap number one I was at the end of the field which was strung out taking over the entire finishing straightaway. At some point my rear wheel, which was just built up recently, again succumbed to my unbelievable force and let a few spokes loosen halfway down the threads. I didn't really even notice it until I stopped, which happened rather suddenly as every other rotation of my wheel my brakes locked up. I didn't realize it until it was not really possible to grab a lap or anything. MOTHERFUCKER. Not that I had a result in my legs, but still. MOTHERFUCKER.

Anyway, there were cooler things to be seen. Across from where I sat down to watch the race sat a bike shop's tent displaying some high end bikes. I gazed over and realized one of them was a Cannondale System6 with SRAM Force shifters and ders. MOTHERFUCKER! So of course I went over and checked it out. I rode it up and down the street numerous times fooling around with the shifting. I really liked it... Certainly a learning curve, but it feels crisp. The angle that the shifter motion is swept back is natural, but it takes some getting used to... if that makes sense. Something didn't feel comfortable where the shifters met the bars, but that can usually be changed by how you mount them, or wrap the tape. I tried out the shifting position when you're in the drops holding the shifting lever back and flicking your wrist. It worked really well, and certainly very possible to do in a sprint. The one thing I didn't like right off was that there is no trim on the front der. What's with that? The dude from the shop said because of the Double Tap, they couldn't do it. Shutup. If the rear has ten "trim" positions, if you will, why can't the front have more than two positions?

Anyway, I got home and rode Penn's Caves because I was pissed. Almost bonked. Never good to ride when you're pissed, but I'm tired now so I'll sleep better. At least I didn't crash I guess, Kyle may have broken his collarbone, so hopefully he can get back on the bike soon. Certainly could have been worse for both of us.

Training

July 4th... spent a few hours out on the bike. Munas and I rode Upper Lime into Black Mo. We rode all the climbs very steady which was relatively easy on the early climbs, and became increasingly difficult, at least for me, as we progressed through the ride. I hadn't climbed over ridges here side by side with someone in a while and it really made me realize that I had let my climbing technique suffer quite a bit. (That assumes I had better technique back at some point). Realizing that I dropped back quickly whenever I let my upperbody bounce or if I didn't keep even pressure on the pedals throughout the full stroke. Basically I realized I just need to concentrate a whole lot more at keeping my upper body steady, and my pedaling action smooth. Earthbreaking right? Just didn't realize I had gotten so sloppy. Hopefully I can get used to riding a bit more fluently for Toona.

I got the Harrisburg (now Hummelstown) Honda crit, Mount Penn and Giro di Coppi on the schedule before Toona. The last two there should let me test out some more climbing in a racing situation.

On another vein, sucks for Valverde, Rodriguez and Erik Dekker. What is the record for collarbone fractures in one day at the Tour??

Some racing updates...

Well it's been a little while since I've updated this. You can certainly read into that, I haven't had anything encouraging or fun to share for a while.

Some catchup: Few weeks ago I did both the 4/5 and the 3/4 at Pfieffer Hill. The course was a few miles with one pretty good climb and a few other painful uphill pitches. One lap into the 4/5 I broke my spoke. Immediately my wheel was rubbing badly on the brakes, so I just had to stop and wait for the sag wagon. The guy who picked me up was the promoter, whom I had actually contacted before about the poor quality maps he has on his website. He was a pretty cool guy, and he eventually hooked me up with a spoke and lent me some tools to fix my wheel. So I got it all patched up for the 3/4. However I just didn't have the legs to hang with the 3/4 field on the climb. I later discovered that I had broken two more spokes. Often when you break one and just replace it without retensioning, the wheel is much weaker. On a better note Luke managed to get a top 15 in the 3/4, finishing up strong in the front group... rock on.

So now onto the reason I feel like writing here again. This past weekend Munas, Kyle, Matt S., Kristine "Jersey" J., Rachel and I did the Tour de Sales at De Sale University. It was a "collegiate" race in the middle of the summer. The first day was a crit, and despite only having about 12 starters, the action was hot from the beginning. Mike Chauner from Bucknell (A rider, strong dude) attacked through the first turn, and everyone groaned. The field chased him down, and about a lap later they rang the bell for a $10 prime. Some messing around on the backside left me a lane, so I took it on a slight uphill, and had enough of a gap to take the prime. Chauner quickly bridged up to me and the break was off. I didn't take consistent pulls the first two laps or so off the front. I wasn't sure how smart it was to ride with this kid to the finish, but I figured 2nd place as a worse case scenario isn't bad. So we worked pretty well together for the next 10-12 laps. Munas, Kyle and Spohn were all chasing down people trying to bridge up during this time. Chauner and I opened up about a 3/4 lap lead, and the messing around began. We attacked each other for about a lap and a half before he finally jumped and I just couldn't respond. I finished it up for 2nd place. Good day. Munas rounded out the podium by taking the field sprint.

Sunday was a circuit race, with a pretty good climb near the finish. I felt good in the first few laps, and was trying to help keep tabs on Chauner, and possibly make him feel it a bit on the climb. That backfired a bit when I couldn't hang on the climb, and got dropped with 2 to go. Munas again sprinted well to get 3rd while Kyle came up big to get 5th. Kevin, a JMU rider, made a great move in the finale to outsmart Chaunder and Munas for the win.

And the girls won everything. Noone else showed up... sucks.

Fun weekend all in all. Only thing that sucked is that now I have two checks made out to "Penn State Cycling". Greeeaaat. That'll be easy to get money. I'll post some pictures later.

Annodization take 2

Well the second round of annodization went much better. There are moments when my high school self would have hit my current self upside the head, and my first swing at annodization was one of those. I wired up the batteries in parallel in attempts to try and add up the voltage. Well, it doesn't quite work that way, and switching to series hookups made all the difference. It was much quicker, you could hear a little crackaling, and could definetly hear hydrogen gas bubbling out from under the paper towel. Sweet. The first picture of the headtube is a bit weird looking because of the flash. I did the whole headtube in the deep blue, and then tried to bring out the "A" headbadge by holding the electrode there longer, thus making it a brighter blue. Sort of worked, I'll have to touch it up in the daylight. The last two pictures show the flames on the toptube, which came out pretty well. A little leaking occured with the stencil, but I'm confident that once I get a good stencil made for the lettering I want to put on, then that problem will be eliminated.

Annodization...part 1

I was really excited to begin annodizing my bike, but so far the results haven't lived up to the hype. I think my biggest problem is lack of voltage. I'm just using 27 volts for now, and I want to do at least 45 next time to try and get a deeper blueish color instead of the yellowish/brown there now. I'm thinking I also need a voltmeter to track how quickly I'm killing the batteries. Anyway, here are some pictures of the first round with the annodization... probably try it again later in the week when I have some more time on my hands. There is some promise though, hopefully in a few weeks time my bike will look faster than me.

Carbon Wheels...

So I finally got my carbone glued up, and it's smooth, and sounds schweet. I've heard carbon wheels ridden around before, but the sound from a carbon wheel sounds like an airplane taking off, which is very different than what a normal aluminum rimmed wheel sounds like. Now it's not all about sound. Style counts too.

Memorial Hall

This past Saturday I was in Philly for the PA state criterium championships. The course was about a 0.6 mile 4 corner standard course. The interesting thing was the fact that you could see the entire course from the center, and the large puddles on the outside or inside of the turns. Right from the gun the rain was pouring down, and there was even a clap of thunder or two. For a moment I thought it might be called, but the weather cleared a bit, and we were able to do the 40 laps.

It was extremely easy to move around in the field, being that the roads were extremely wide and the field wasn't too large (no more than 75 I would say). I stayed up in the top 1/3 for the whole race. About 5 or so laps in I found myself right at the front when a lone dude who had been off the front was caught. I figured now is as good a time as ever, and took a little dig for myself. I was only out for about 3/4 of a lap, but it served as a decent warmup. I didn't let myself slide back more than 5 or 10 spots when I got caught. I've had the habit of letting myself get thrown right to the back of the field when getting caught back in, and I was happy with staying up front this time. The last lap proved a bit more difficult to move up than any of the others (who would have figured) and I ended up getting boxed out going into turn 3. Coming out of turn 3 the guy I was following through, a Cornell kid (who had been pretty sketchy all race) decided to go off into a large puddle and into the field next to the course. I had to ease up for a moment to get around his ass, and that little bit was enough to kick me out of contention. Still very happy with the effort though. Kyle C. was up there and got 15th while Jeff S. flatted with 5 corners to go and wasn't able to get up for the sprint.

I'm looking forward to a hard week of training. My next stint at a paid training ride , or racing as you may know it as, should be at Pieffer. Maybe here I can finally do the 4/5 ; 3/4 combo. Look out.

Worst Speed Ride Ever

Well I did the speed ride yesterday, and it pretty much sucked right from the get go. It was a lot bigger than when I did it two weeks ago, so I was looking forward to trying and sticking around longer. I figured less pulls would mean I could stay in the wheels longer. Well it was also a helluva lot faster I think, so I was off about halfway down 45. Rode by myself for much of it, then caught Frank from Wheelworks, and some other dude caught us, so we worked for a little bit. I took a good hard pull at the front, and then was not able to get onto their wheels again. So I rode the whole way home by myself. I took the shortcut through Merango, but I still didn't catch the group, they must have been flying. I saw the slower group that did the shortcut, and it was pretty big.

Well all of that wouldn't have made it the worst ride ever, just a bit frustrating. But on the way home I also completly broke my left STI lever which had been on the rocks for some time. For now it's stuck in the big ring, and I hope that it stays like that so I can "race" Memorial Hall this weekend.

Millport 4/5 Race Report

This is my imitation of an Andy Munas race report.

Myself, Jeff Schutt, Adam Snoke and Shawn Limbert were representing the blue and white (in and out of actual blue and white) at Millport this Saturday in the 4/5.

The race started off relatively easy, with a single rider establishing about a 15-20 second lead that lasted about the first 2 of 8 laps. It was a bit windy, and there were not enough technical sections to really get an advantage on a field today, unless you were really heads and shoulders above the rest. I managed to stay in the first 10 or so places for the first few laps and found it humorous that people were yelling to get riders to come through and work hard to bring the single rider back. I never pulled, and would have bitch smacked anyone who yelled at me. The wind did the trick, and the rider was back in the field relatively shortly. About halfway through I was suffering a bit more and the rest of the PSU contingent was moving to the front as I was sliding towards the back. Coming through to see 2 laps to go, the officials sprung a prime on us, for what I'm not exactly sure. Mr. Snoke, not being too mathematically inclined, thought it was the end of the race and worked hard to get a 4th place in the 1 deep prime. Not sure exactly what happened to him on the actual last lap, but he didn't quite have it to sprint again. Meanwhile Limbert and Schutt moved up very strongly. Jeff took a top 10 spot, while Shawn took the perfect leadout from I believe some Iron Hill riders to take the win. I got caught up behind a stupid crash on the only "uphill" on the last lap. I didn't go down but got slowed juuuust enough to not be able to fight back on. Generally though, I was happy with my efforts, and am looking forward to being able to mix it up in a finale shortly.

Melissa Wills also did I believe a 3/4 Woman's race, while Erica Allar, who got her cat 2 upgrade, was forced to do the Men's 1,2,3! I wasn't able to hang around, so I don't know how they fared. Hopefully Erica's "Sarah Uhl" type move didn't prove too short and she was able to hang in there.

Next Saturday: Rapho Road Race. Possibly a 4/5 3/4 double? We'll see how the legs feel this week...maybe a bit too soon to be thinking that, let's finish one first eh?

Time Trial Course

Well I went out and did the Tadpole TT course Friday morning, in the pouring rain none the less. I was dissapointed that I had forgotten about it the evening before, and I had to work instead. So I went out and put in what I felt like was a pretty decent effort. I have a new position on the TT bike, and it felt allright on the way out to the turnaround. I clocked 13 minutes on the dot at the turnaround, which was well behind my pace from last year of 12:20. I finished it off in about 27:15, a lot slower than my 24:25 from last year. I bumped my seat up about a centimeter for the ride home, and I think that'll feel better especially when pulling myself up gradients in the aerobars. So I'll have to keep on getting out on that bike and get more and more comfortable on it... My first real TT will likely be at Owasco the weekend before Toona, I hope to rip that one open.

Also the SRAM Force group looks pretty hot. I believe the retail is going to be $1,800.00, so I may be able to get it for a bit over a grand... have to start saving now. Donations are welcome.

Family Trip

I just got back from a trip out to Ohio, where my grandma, Aunt, and brother all live. I first visited Yellow Springs, OH where I saw my 1 year old neice and brother. Cheyan is walking around like crazy, and eats a signifigant portion of her body weight at every sitting. Pretty sweet if you ask me. I went for a ride with my oldest brother, and just relaxed before heading up to Lima the next day.

My grandma is in a nursing home there, and it was not a great visit. The decision was made to put her under hospice care, which is basically making you comfortable instead of actively treating your condition. She isn't all that aware of what is going on around her, and I'm not exactly sure if she knew who I was. She wants to just go, but just can't yet. I wish that she could just fall asleep and have a peaceful journey... Seems that we don't have a very good way to help our aging citizens. I can't imagine that she is very comfortable with things as they are... The nursing home itself is really nice though, they have birds to watch, activities to do... seems like one of the better ones.

Anyway, I'm back to the realities of State College for a while, riding my bike, working at the shop, studying for the GRE's (yea... have to start that).

Racin' again.

Well, I'll probably start posting some more thigns on here, but this will serve as a quick update. I started training a few weeks ago, and have been trying to get as much time in the saddle as possible, trying to make up for some down time. I raced Union Grove this past weekend. It was a 5 lap circuit race, and I hung on for the first 4, but just didn't have the punch to stay with the group on a little riser on the last lap. Still felt pretty good about my effort though. Check out the picture below of me pretending to be Cipo.

I am being a bum in State College this summer and just riding, working at the Bicycle Shop, and starting to study for the GRE at some point. If you're ever in the 814, drop me a line, I'll be around during the weeks.

Next race: Millport on 6/27

Nittany Classic + New Therapy + Roubaix

Well the Nittany Classic has come and gone, what a quality weekend. I was blown away at the effort our club put into this event. The planning was done well, but was made all the more solid by the people marshaling during races and making tons of food for the kickass dinner on Saturday night. The raffle got us some more cash and garnered excitement on Saturday, while Sunday's roadrace went off without a hitch despite a roadway sized tractor and a neutral rollout through a highway interchange 3 times over. I can't wait for next year. Myself and Andy have already been discussing possible tweeks to our weekend to maximize quality and minimize the chance that any other pretender school would get Easterns. As of now I'm the only person running for Road Race Director for next year, so... I guess I got that job. Schweet.

I also have started physical therapy at a new place. I'm now going to the place near the hospital, Penn State Orthapedics. I like the therapist, he took a good chunk of time to talk with me, and his points made a lot of sense. The biggest issue, which was never pointed out to me before, is that my right leg has NO hyperextension right now. So if you're sitting on a bed with your legs out in front of you, hyperextension is picking up your heel from the bed while keeping your knee on the bed. My left knee can do it for about an inch or two which is normal. My right leg doesn't budge. I also stand with my right knee noticably in front of my left (due to the lack of hyperextension). So I'm doing some stretches and exercises aimed at helping the knee to reach full range of motion (something I thought I had months ago). After a few days it's already feeling better, but I also haven't been really stressing it much. I'm hopeful that this new perspective will help, but I'll try and stay grounded for the time being.

I watched Paris-Roubaix this morning. What a kickass race! Cancellra (CSC) was looking strong all day and took out the win in impressive fashion, while three riders got DQ'ed (2nd,3rd and 4th on the road) for going around a train blocking. Crazy stuff! I figured the days of trains stopping races was long gone. Boonen's group was behind the group that went around the barricades and they stopped. Throw in some crashes (poor Hincappie and Steels) and some gutsy performances (Hammond! never mentioned but the brother had stitches in his knee!! I feel ya buddy). Great race. I'll try and record it. If I can't, I'm buying it. Great trainer viewing material right there.

Nittany Classic is coming...

So it's been a while. This weekened the all knowing road race director and myself flyered the road race circuit, then did a quick lap via two wheels. I think after walking around for 2 hours my knee was ready for a rest, so the ride didn't go so well. Didn't go so well for Andy either as his back is still bugging him. Injuries suck.

Today we flyered the crit course. I get such a weird vibe from MOST of the people who came to the door and talked to me in Bellefonte. Semi-rude, semi-"why they hell are you closing my road"... but there were some nice people who wished us luck in the race.

I also did a quick Boalsburg loop, which felt great. I think not being on my feet for two hours before a ride is the key. Hopefully I can slowly... very slowly... ramp up some time on the bike.

So the Nittany Classic weekend is coming. Three events in two days. I'm excited to see the kid's race... I hope some kids show up! We are planning, in conjunction with some riders from CRBC whom know Dr. Kulakowski's family, to have a prime in his memory at our race. The idea was also put out there that we could have this prime in years to come, which I think would be a great thing to do. The money raised for it could go to the scholarship fund, and a small % to the rider winning it.

If you're around State College area this weekend and are bored, call me. I'll give you a corner to marshall.

Changing Mindset

Everything is what you make of it. I've come to the conclusion that I just need to wrap my mind around that fact. I know I need to stay positive about things, and the easiest way to do that is to change the thing you need to be positive about. In my mind I've written off this collegiate season as a loss, which is much better than hoping to race later on. I don't feel anxious to get better and ride soon. The thing I'm feeling positive about now is getting back to training sometime over the summer, doing a little bit of racing, and then finding a way to stick around and race ECCC next year. It's a lot easier to be positive about those goals, and it takes a lot of pressure off me. I don't think I realized how stressed out I was trying to get on the bike so I could get into some sort of shape for April ECCC races. Screw it. Collegiate races are fun, but they're not worth ruining a whole semester, especially some people's last semester. So here's to Rutgers, I'm going to rock that prologue.

Sike

This past weekend was the first ECCC race of the season at Rutgers University. It was my first time officiating, and it started out boring, and got a lot better as the weekend went along. I started off standing in the freezing cold doing the ITT, writing down numbers of people who passed. After not too long I swung my car around and sat in that instead. It was warmer. Mild entertainment came in the form of people who steered straight through the large line of cones, and did a much harder turn-around than necessary, and from the dude in Men's A who way overcooked the turn, went into the mud, and fell. Hilarious dude, thanks for making my morning. I later found out that two guys skipped the turn-around, and didn't bother to tell anyone... and had times minutes faster than other competitors. Needless to say they were DQed. I felt a bit better after hearing this, as I felt a bit more worthwhile.

The crit in the afternoon was more interesting. I wrote down numbers of people falling off the back, and those winning the prime sprints. It was a little confusing, especially with the Women's B and Men's D and C fields. It was cold and windy, and I was happy to get back to CT's housing hookup for the best post-race dinner put on by a host family ever.

The next day was the circut race and it was real easy to do. Not many lapped riders, or not many lapped riders who kept riding I should say. I just sat around wrote numbers again. I was much better at catching numbers and documenting the race than the first day.

I must say that officiating is not very fun. It was allright because I got paid $100 (which is going to purchase a Mavic Carbone btw). However I'd much rather be racing.

Which reminds me- went to see the surgeon today, and he said the swelling was a lot more than he though it should be... told me to ice it more, some other stretches, and to lay off riding over an hour for a while, like May. He mentioned that 80% of people who see results from my surgery will have seen it by this point. I wanted to ask him how many people really expected to benefit from my surgery, but I think I know what he means. Sucks. I don't think I'll be making it out to many more collegiate weekends now, I can't stand going and not racing, I'd rather pretend it's not going on and I'm not missing anything. Good luck guys/gals. I will still be doing the Philly weekend, however, as I need to pick up that Carbone from Stephan... wonder when I'll get to put it to use.

Back on the road

The past four days have been pretty cool. Watching the Tour of California, taking two really easy midterms, and putting 8 hours in the saddle... all good things. The Tour has been really cool to watch, it's great such a big race is taking off in the states (no offense Georgia). For some reason, likely the timing on the calendar, this event has had a much deeper international field, and has made things that much more interesting. Mike Friedman's race has been cool to track as well, he ripped it up in the time trial in the middle of the race... beating the reigning world time trial champion in the process.

I started riding real easy, doing an easy hour, then an hour and half, and over the weekend did the "mock race" which was fun. I hung with the "fast" (A/B) group for just half a lap, but still felt good about the effort I was able to put out. Unlike my other easier rides I put in a jump or two out of the saddle which resulted in minimal speed increase (that will come) but also no pain... which I was excited about.

So look out ECCC, a mediocre kid with big goals is coming back to race. Watch out kid who thinks he's going to get 15th in the B race in NYC... you're going to get 16th sucker.

New perspectives

I always used to be rather nonchalant about saying, "yea... I'm a cyclist. I shave my legs and eat gooey honey-like syrups and layerup with many lycra garments and ride into shitty weather". I never realized that being a cyclist is such a privilege... a privilege that I'm really having trouble with not having right now. And its not just injury that prevents people from taking advantage of cycling... I'm sure the number one is money. I'm really lucky in this respect. My brothers worked over my parents so they were ready for the hundred dollar nashbar orders to build up my first bike, and the registration fees and the like. Sure I've worked during the summers and have earned a good chunk of my race money in the last few years, but without being lucky enough to have parents that first have, and secondly give the money necessary to enter our sport... I'd be a different person. (I certainly wouldn't be freaking out about how hairy my legs are at this point...)

I've also been wondering about my mental state when I start to race again. I know going into my first few races I'll be satisifed just to be there. I can't wait to be on a start line again. But I think it's going to be really hard to not expect results too soon. I know the first time I don't stack up on a TT I'm going to be really pissed.... I've come to take those for granted. I guess I'll just have to stay positive, I'm sure I'll be happy to be out there. I think it's really important to wait before I start to race, so I'm at least able to finish... I'd like to put a good month of riding relatively hard before I line up. I've DNF'ed some races when I've been training, but I just don't want to deal with it once I'm starting it back up again.

But on a more pleasant note, the Tour of California starts tonight (or rather eariler today). ESPN2 is showing an hour of coverage for each stage from 1AM-2AM. The time sucks, I don't know why they can't show it eariler.... but at this point I'm glad that it's on TV in the states, and that there is coverage for each stage. That is more than I can say about the Giro, but I'll rant about OLN much more later on.... Not really sure who I'm pulling for, but I think it'd be good to have an American on the podium somewhere when it's all said and done. It would help the sport grow in the US a bit in the vaccum of post-lance. I think Levi has good shot, and from what I've read he's pretty fit. So... go (American) German water boy! But seriously, we all know that Mike Friedman is going to take the prologue... it's made for his massive quads and large butt.

Chocolate cake

What's better than chocolate cake?

surprise chocolate cake.

Thanks for helping me push the 190 barrier. I'm officially fat now.

Officially Official

On Saturday Dave Matlin, the highly qualified CTS administrative executive Alyssa Gaebel and I traveled to Emmanus, Pa to partake in a USA Cycling Official's Clinic. It was an easy day... I learned the most on the structure of how the officials work, and how they get paid. Basically there are chief Referees and Judges, and Assistant Referees and Judges. I am now a "C" official, so I can, in most cases, only be one of the assistants, which means all I do is watch and write crap down- I'll almost never be called upon to make any sort of judgment or snap decision. We ate lots of bagels, went over some slides, and then got a rulebook and took an open-book exam. The questions were relatively entertaining:

A Cyclocross course is defined as:
a. completely unreadable
b. composed of varying terrain
c. having at least 2.5" of mud around the entire course
d. being full of snow

In many cases all of those options may be applicable...

Now I'm officially official:

We also had the honor of being enlightened as to the coming of Christ. Thank you central Pennsylvania.

Swap Products and a cross bike

Yesterday, on Superswap Sunday myself, and at least 10 other members of PennState Cycling, took to the road at 5AM to get to a swap down in Maryland. (For you non-cycling people a bikeswap is a large garage sale with 99.9% of the merchandise being cycling parts/bikes/clothing/junk). We ended up getting there about an hour earlier than we needed to which sucked, but at least we were first in line. Waiting to get in was made more stressful than necessary by the people behind us who must have thought we looked like savvy enough swappers to buy up all the good deals before they had time to get into the 10,000 square foot space. Seriously now people. As Chris Thompson stated, it felt like we were staging for a race.

I didn't really need anything. Except maybe a chain tool. I wanted a whole lot of other things, but didn't bother to make a list or anything this time around. There was no reason for me to come with $150. There was no reason for me to leave with $2. Oh well. I got a Thomson stem for my cross bike for $25, a used tubular-clincher cross tyre for $10, ugly Ti-railed old style (that doesn't eat my ass) selle italia saddle for $15, wireless computer for the TT rig, chamois cream, arm+leg warmers, mudflap for a commuter or cross bike....oh yea, and the thing I needed, a chain tool for $2. The chain tool doesn't work. oh well.

One of the best purchases must have been these green "crocs". Me and Matlin went in and got a pair each for $20 a pop:
After getting back to State College I watched the first half of the Superbowl while building up my Redline Conquest Pro cross bike. Featuring red housing, and blue peace sign brake cable anchor things (what are those called?), and when racing... some reddish Tufo tubular-clincher tires... should look cool. I'll look good getting lapped this fall...

More Food Please

I did my longest ride in a long time yesterday. Had plans of doing Penn's Cave, went out and did the finishing climb for our race in April, and then just did the Sprint Ride (out to Centre Hall and back). All and all it was about 40 miles in 2 1/2 hours. Nothing crazy, but I was still pretty drained after getting back. Hoping to put in a good hour and a half today to keep the riding up.

When I stopped riding in August my food bill went from about $50 dollars a week to about $30 dollars a week. But I think the 10 or so hours I put in this past week is revving the engine back up... I had two dinners and a snack before going to bed last night. So here's to forking over 50 bucks every week. It's well worth it if I can ride though.

I'm excited about this weekend. Going to the bike swap in Md and watching the SuperBowl on Sunday... Go Seahawks! The last time I was at a swap I didn't react quick enough in grabbing the full DuraAce 9speed groupo for $100. I was using some of Stephan's visualizing last night to ensure that such a mental blunder does not repeat itself. I've been grabbing at shifters and cranksets in my sleep....different than what I usually grab for in my sleep.

Kreitler Rollers

Got my new Kreitler Rollers today:


The Poly-Myte edition.They are pretty sweet. Retail for about $350 I believe, but the club has a pretty good discount. Also coming with the rollers are 8 of the logo stickers with the rockin' Kreitler dog on it:Or maybe that is a charachter from star wars.... a wookie? In any event I tried them out and they are super smooth... much better than the Performance brand ones I bought (and returned) for the same price. My knee was a bit under the weather, so I just did a short spin on them to try them out... maybe three days in a row is a bit much yet. Take a a day off again and see if I can't ride on Thursday.

Also noticed that Mercyhurst's ECCC race weekend(pdf) (April 15 and 16) features a 7.5 mile ITT. I hope I can get a good amount of time in on the Nova TT machine to rock that thing out. I'm hoping for a headwind alllll day long.

20-something cyclist is reminded of prepubescent days of decreased muscle mass

I took advantage of the 50 degree weather and snuck a ride to Boalsburg and back in today. I never knew that the loop had a number of categorized climbs. I have felt more tired after training rides, but during it I was dying... I think I just need to get my lungs back. It did feel a lot better than the last time I rode the loop about a week ago. Riding in the saddle is almost the same, the only issue is when I get out of the saddle I can still feel that the lateral side of my right knee is swollen. There is still a noticeable difference in the size and strengths of my two quads... hope that levels out soon.

One scare during the ride was for about 10 minutes in the middle of the ride I thought my knee was feeling really weird. At the top of the stroke I could feel pressure on the outside top side of the joint. Took me a few minutes to figure out, but it ended up just being my knee warmers. It had shifted a bit and were tight enough that the swollen part of my knee was rubbing up on it. Felt pretty good once I realized that.

Next mission: Lower Lime


Can you guess which knee below was surgically altered?

Late drop is the shiznit.

Late drop is a very cool thing, granted you have the credits left. I was taking a semi-conductor class... and once I realized that I didn't like it I wondered to myself why I was taking another class with EE undertones, and dropped it like a fat kid drops a carrot. Then I picked up the book and threw it on half.com, and within a few hours had sold it for $60.00. Rock on right? Now I have more time during the day to do my work so that means more Mario Kart in the next week or so, and then more Erik Kart after that when I start venturing outside again on my bicycle.

For those of you who have not yet late-dropped a class, I would reccomend it. I feel like a new man, and it's all because I don't have to go learn about electron configurations tomorrow. So if you have an elective that you don't like, drop it and sell the book on half.com and blow the money on bike parts, you'll be better off for it.

That and, this will be my new helmet come March... I might have a larger left quad and be off the back on lap 2, but damn, I'll look good.

Maybe I'll give this another whirl.

I ran out of useless things to say last semester, but now that I have two assignments due tomorrow, I have plenty of useless information to bestow on none of the people who read this.

School has been hot and heavy the first few weeks. I'm taking 17.5 credits (1.5 of which is the Century class though). Still 16 credits is a heavy load for ME... I'm taking STAT418 which I've been warned is hard, but doesn't see too crazy yet; ESci 314: Semiconductor Materials because I might want to do some stuff with solar panels down the line; ME440 because I have to; ME 434 Compressible Gas Flow because I wanted to; IE312-this class blows, and ME84 Heat Transfer Lab because I liked ME412.

On more interesting fronts I've been doing PT for my knee which I got surgery on over the break. For those not in the know I got arthroscopic and an open lateral release. The former you probably know is looking and cleaning out the interior of the joint while the latter is the cutting of tendons on the lateral (outside) side of my knee. This will help my kneecap track correctly. I plan to slowly get back to riding outside in the next few weeks, though I still don't know when I'll be able to train for real... it's still a bit tender when I really put some torque through the pedals.

Also look at the pretenders who wish they were as cool as me: Spohn and Munas.