Look Closely

So, I found a great side shot of Dan riding his time trial bike. I posted pictures of his TT bike a week or two ago to show how much drop he has. This is a great picture of a very strong time trial rider mid-flight.....oh, but look closely.

Reading glasses and brown argyle socks? Dan was punished by the cycling fashion gods half-way through this time trial in the form of a flat tire.

On a technical note - Dan's been using the ISM Adamo saddle for the better part of this past year on his TT bike and it really seems like a good product. There is a rule as to how far forward your saddle can be (5cm behind your bottom bracket) and many riders have their hip angle closed off by sitting to far back on their TT bike (which reduces power). This saddle seems like a really good option because you can sit really far forward on it and won't need to worry about the 5cm rule. Dan even got CCB masters rider Dimitri Buben to switch over to the saddle. Dimitri is a former Masters World TT podium finisher.

A Good Bowl of Soup

This is the time of the year when I really enjoy a good bowl of soup. What I will do often for lunch is go over to one of the restaurants that does a good soup and get a bowl of soup and a small dark roast coffee.

Now here's where it gets tricky.

Generally, you get a nice big piece of bread with your soup, and sometimes some butter for that bread. Butter that piece of bread up and break it in half.

Here's why.

Because when you can go over to where they have the milk and sugar for your coffee, there is usually some honey there as well. Put honey all over one of your chunks of bread. Now you've got desert too! And the honey will be all soaked in by the time you're ready to eat it. All for under $5. And you have your other piece of bread and butter to mop up some of whatever delicious soup you have selected.

Now, here is a little guide to some of the soup genres:
Bisque - The king of the soups.
Chowders - A close, and jealous 2nd to the bisque.
Stew - Arguably something different altogether - but really just an rowdy soup.
Miso - Salt! Salt! Need the Salt! Where's the Salt? Its salty good.
Cream - A lazy cousin of the Bisque. Only to be eaten in dire circumstance.
Minestrone - Jack of all trades, master of none.
Noodle - For when chewing your noodles is just too much.

Good skiing today

And here's who was heading out when I was heading out. (I was skate skiing at Bolton)

A couple of the CVU boys had already gotten some skate skiing in and were switching boots and heading out for some classic. I think these guys are going to have a great season. They've got focus.Dan and Erin. Classic. Erin was using some Karhu Novas I had sold her the day before.Eric and Sarah. They were rocking out today on Karhu Escapes. I need to get a pair of those.Lee Mallory. Legend in his own right. All Smiles.

Thanksgiving Food and Phone

My sister and I made the trans-New England voyage from Burlington, VT over to North Hampton, NH to spend Thanksgiving with our mother's side of our family. Our aunt and uncle Cathy and Pat live there and their son Ryan was there as well. Our grandparents came as well along with another aunt and uncle, Trice and Denis, and their kids Callie and Meg. It was a great to spend Thanksgiving with everybody. Liz and I went for a 50 minute run down to the ocean and back in the morning which was good to get the appetite warmed up. Over the years I have thrown down pretty hard on Thanksgiving, so I have a bit of a reputation to live up to. A couple years ago I ate with the intent of finding out exactly how much I was capable of eating. Boy, did that hurt! This year I did two plates of food and two plates of pie. Pretty modest, considering. And one beer and the Lions/Packers game too.

Another nice thing was when my parents called. My dad called my sisters cell phone and my mom called the land line at my aunt and uncle's house. The phones were passed around and everybody got to talk to them. It was really nice hearing them. My father and I talked a bit about my upcoming trip to visit them in Egypt with Helen. Ciaro here we come.

Food - I must say the gravy was especially great.Pie - one big slice of apple and one tasty slice of pecan. and then another of each.Here's the whole table. Good stories, lots of food, and big candles.Liz and I talking to our parents.Our parents, in Cairo, talking to us.Showing my grandmother and my cousin Ryan my blog. She liked the Catamount Cyclocross pictures. She watched my sister and I run cross-country races there in high school.

And One More Thing

A note about Amos (Brumble - teammate and captain), he really showed me an important lesson in my first year with CCB that you really can race with anybody and kick some major ass without doing drugs. That's an important lesson to learn as a cyclist just starting to do the "big-time" races for the first time and wondering how you're ever going to be able to compete. He's really showed me how much you can improve yourself with these things:

-Bike handling skills
-Attentive/aggressive racing
-Proper nutrition
-Good recovery
-A thought out, well balanced training plan
-Proper bike fit and equipment selection
-Just straight up guts.

In this picture he is chasing down a doper (Heredia) with another doper (Tardaguila) right behind him - all while riding right away from guys like Dominique Perras, Karl Menzies, Frank Pipp, and Anthony Colby. This was the Univest GP in 2005...still to date the most exciting sporting event I have ever watched.

A couple Shout-Outs

-Happy Birthday Pat Walsh.
-Congrats Dan Vaillancourt on figuring out 2008
and
-Thanks for dying turkey so that I could eat you tomorrow

I really meant to win a bike race this past year. I didn't. I had this whole "Academy Award type speech" planned out where I thanked everybody who's helped me out. I've gotten some big time help from people and wanted to acknowledge it publicly...

....oh but wait...

...I have a blog now!

So here goes:
Thanks Mom and Dad (creators and omnipotent beings)
Thanks Liz (sister)
Thanks Helen (girlfriend)
Thanks Scott Oliver (friend, mentor)
Thanks Steve Pucci (team manager, mentor)
Thanks Skirack (flexible, friendly employer)
Thanks Dan, Will, Amos, Matt, Jeff, Sasha, Shawn, Ciaran, and Yahor (incredible teammates)
And Everybody else.

You all (Ya'll?) are so nice and give me so much help and god knows I need it. I always deeply appreciate it!

Jared Bunde Doping - Weird.

So, a racer I raced against a fair amount this year - Jared Bunde, of the GS Mengoni team - has just accepted a 2 year ban for doping. He got busted from a test while out at Superweek, a race series that happens out in the Midwest in July. These are the same races that Alvaro Tardaguila got busted at. Tardagulia was a Uraguain rider racing for the team Mike Fraysee runs that was sponsored by the University of Pittsburg Medical Center. He got busted for EPO and Steroid use. Of the times I interacted with him, he seemed friendly.

Jared is also a nice guy and got busted for using Clomiphene. Not sure what that is exactly, but it gets you two years. If you dope and you're reading this Blog - STOP! And remember, not all the bad people are dopers and not all the nice people aren't. Its weird that way. There are some people who are real jerks who are really intense about not doping. There are some people who are really friendly and genuine who stick needles in their butt and pop pills.

Its pretty annoying that people do this. I'm interested in racing as a professional and there are people out there who are using drugs to ride better than they can actually ride. Its absolutely not ok.

I do want to give a shout-out to Eugene Boronow, of the GS Mengoni team, who is a great guy. I've ridden with him a lot in races - both off the front and off the back. He's told me a little bit about how the NYC cycling scene has a weird doping culture. All I can say to any and everyone is - Just Stop - NOW!

Le Doper de Jour

The Finer Things in Life...and Crazy drop

Here's a few of the finer things in life. This stuff is just straight up pretty to look at.

Time VXR Proteam ModuleMadshus Carbon Race 100HM PoleSram Red GroupsetRCS Carbonlite Skate PlusMavic R-Sys WheelsetCervelo P2C FramesetAnd, as promissed, some pictures of Dan Cassidy's TT bike - and one of his road bike. Copious amounts of saddle to handlebar drop. These bikes will be coming soon to a long time trial, breakaway, and hillclimb near you.

First Day on SNOW

I went skiing today at Bolton Valley. Helen and I drove up to Bolton after a lazy morning of lounging around. Her mouth is still not completely healed from having her wisdom teeth out so she didn't want to ski quite yet - but she took a nice long walk in the snow up there. I brought my classic equipment but barrowed a pair of waxless touring skis from the rental skis. It was really excellent conditions and they are getting out tonight to do some grooming. There were no rocks and lots of snow. Not quite all the water has frozen so there's still some water under the snow at certain parts of the trail. Here are the pictures you've all been waiting for...SNOW.


Dork.My sister just happy to be pointing out all the snow. She's got a good gig up at Bolton.As you can see, the trails are well covered. It felt good to be going uphill on a pair of cross country skis again. Nothing gets your heart pumping quite the same way.Eric Tremble, who races for the Kenda/Raleigh team in the summertime, was also out and about on a pair of classic skis - with a big grin on his face just like me.Enough talking...back to the skiing.Me pointing out how much snow there is on the trees.I got back to the Sports Center to find my sister hard at work...ensuring that the snow was of the highest quality - so that everybody could come play in it.

Bike Work @ Green Mt. Rehab

So, yesterday I had off from work and spent most of the day training and work on some bike stuff. I just changed the saddle on my bike to a Fizik Arione and changed them orientation of the cant wedges I use between my shoe and cleat.

After a morning run - the first good run since the crippling half-marathon - I drove into Burlington with my bike and went to Green Mt Rehab. Andy and Eric run GMR and it is located in the same building as the Skirack. I started going there after last season, just over a year ago. I primarily use their services in the off-season for figuring out improvements to my bike position (they also help me with stuff like VO2Max testing). They have the knowledge and equipment to figure out if bike and equipment changes are resulting in more effeciency and power or not. That is the great thing about the bike being a machine, you can actually calculate fuctional differences when you change something like the footbed in a shoe - something that's much harder to do with running or x-c skiing.

But, honestly I think the reason I and most everyone else likes these guys so much is that they are just really nice and fun to work with. If they were any more laid back they'd be laying down.

Yesterday I was working with Andy. This is me on the computrainer. Just getting started and warming up. It looks like my most recent changes have resulted in improvement.
My co-worker Dan came up and we talked about what I was doing. I explained to him how when I first got on the computrainer just over a year ago that I pedaled 60-40 (left leg to right leg) and how today I was finally at 50-50!Like I said, Andy is a very smart guy - but he's not a bore. Here he takes a goof-ball picture of himself with my camera while I'm not looking.Success is ours. 50-50 power output between the legs. Spin scan numbers in the high 70's to low 80's (vs. low 60's). Sitting squarely on the saddle with no rocking. And pedaling 300 watts at about 155 HR. (makes me wonder why I couldn't pedal worth a damn at Putney last week). I'll keep working with Green Mt. Rehab over the next couple months and keep dialing it in. Its important to work on making any changes to bike position and equipment during the winter and not during the season. Thanks Andy!

I'm Using My Camera Finally...

The following is photo documentation of my friend and co-worker Peter and I going to Mirabelles for lunch on 11/14/07. These are the first pictures I have taken with the digital camera I have owned for over 2 years.

This is Peter clockin' out on the computer system - it looks like he's really into it...keyboard in hand.
This is the obligitory "holding the camera looking back at you" picture. Peter and I decided this was going to be a serious lunch break.
The menu. We were having a late lunch and thus missed the window to get breakfast for lunch. That is a Croque Monsieur I see on the right side though! HMMM.
I've spotted the Monsieur...but alas, I make the hard decision to go with the avacado and black bean panini. Au Revoir Monsieur!
Damn straight I'm part of the clean plate club. My good friend Nate Koeppel is one who showed me that there nothing to be ashamed of about polishing your plate clean when eating. Thanks Nate!
Peter and I were stuffed, but we just new we had to get a couple big cookies to finish off this wonderful lunch break.
Here is a picture of Peter with his boy P'ditty. That's the Cervelo P3 he got from his summer boss. Expect him to kick-ass and take names on it next season. For now, its the fastest and coolest commuter bike in Burlington. Fix-gears for commuters? Lame. P3 for commuters? Edgy.

Putney? more like Put-don't

So, my bread and butter excuse for why I haven't done well in my limited cyclocross racing over the last year has been that I just crash too much. Well, I went down to Putney on Sunday for the West Hill race - I didn't crash once - and I still sucked. So, this means I just rode slow. Even so it was still fun :-).

Ben Coleman, who also works at the Skirack, won the Cat 3 race & Matt Monbouquette, who also works at the Skirack, got second in the Cat 4 race. It was great fun watching them race so well.

There will probably be some pictures from Putney up in the next day or two...

4 Weeks until my first x-c ski race of the year! Stew on that.

Oh, and Will Dugan is my darkhorse pick for the U23 Cyclocross National Championship. I gave him a superlative pep-talk this evening...I'd elaborate, but I think you kinda had to be there.

Oh well...and other happenings

So, it looks like I counted my ducks before they hatched. No Richard Geng for next season...he's off to the glorious mid-atlantic to ride with the Rite-Aid Pro team. Its still exciting that he'll be racing here next season.

Speaking of Glorious people from Europe...I talked to my Belarusian teammate Sasha just the other day on the phone. It had been a couple months. Well, he's gotten himself a long-term visa, a girlfriend, a new apartment, a new job, and he's taking a college class. He's been staying busy! And I'm sure he's really happy to have the visa situation worked out.

The 2008 NRC (National Race Calendar) schedule for bike racing came out. Nothing to crazy or new going on, but its good to see that Fitchburg is back on the map, and Cox Charities is in too. That race has been getting better and better fields each year.

Incase you didn't know "Sport Stacking" is getting huge. I think it may become my new passion. Well, maybe just to watch. Its weird.

Shelburne Half-Marathon Pictures

Fooling the System

I have once again dooped the Nebra system...and potentially tricked people into thinking I am better at riding bicycles than I am. Hah Hah!

The 2007 Nebra Road Rankings for Pro/1/2 are completed and it was a good year for people named Jake. Jake Keough was first and I was second.

However, don't be confused - Chris Jones, Mark McCormick, Amos Brumble, Josh Dillon, Adam Myerson and lots of those guys are better than me....but not at DOOPING THE SYSTEM.

*takes a bow*

Oh, and I had hinted before about a German rider...its confirmed, Richard Geng, the famous "Geng Green" of the 2006 Fitchburg Stage race, will be racing with CCB for the 2008 season (and hopefully be living here in Burlington).

Parental Picture Spectacular

-First picture is my parents and some friends of theirs on a hike up Mt. Sanai (as in the burning bush & the 10 Commandments).

-The second picture is my dad in what is called a tuk-tuk - essentially a tiny little 3 wheel taxi. He was in Bangkok for a conference.

A Hurting Unit! (long post)

So, Dan Cassidy and I did the Shelburne Half-Marathon this morning. We decided a couple weeks ago we'd do this just to try out a longer distance running race. In fact this was Dan's first ever running race. Hip-Hip-(you say Hooray!).

Fellow bikers/ex-bikers Jason Baer (Kenda-Raleigh team), Kevin Bouchard-Hall (Young rider Jersey 2004 Tour of Georgia), and Liz Harrison (ECCC Crit Champion 2004) were all in attendance as well...which was awesome. There was probably about a crowd of 200 or so on the start line at the Shelburne Country Store at 8:00am.

Dan and I had the goal of running under 1:30. That would be 6:52 miles. I've just been running about 4-5 weeks, doing 4-5 miles every other, or every 3rd day - and it was Dan's first running race...so this seemed like a good goal. We went out nice and slowly, sitting 30-40 people back for the first mile. Then Dan started moving up a little. Things felt in the legs and the pace felt easy, so we positioned ourselves closer to the front, maybe 10 guys back.

Things continued to feel good so we moved up into a little group, maybe 50 yards back off the front group of 4. I knew there was a steep hill a couple miles into the course and told Dan we'd move up there. We followed the plan and joined the leaders at that point. Having bikers legs we had to run the downhills a little slower than the others, but having bikers lungs we could charge up the hills pretty well.

There was a long gradual downhill approaching the half-way point and Dan started to feel some real tightness in his hips and upper quads. He did the smart thing and backed it off a bit. Unfortunately the tightness continued the rest of the race - and Dan couldn't use the nice long stride he has. Still, it was great to get him into a running race and it seems like he enjoys the challenge of something new.

Meanwhile, a runner from behind surged strongly as the half-way point (as we passed my house) and he broke up the front group. One other runner from that group and myself clawed back up to the leader. We ran for several miles together, including a portion through Shelburne Farms. As we got into the closing miles the runner who had surged mid-race dropped off, and it was just two of us. I ran in second and stayed there as I felt my muscles get tighter and tighter and starting to strain a bit. I did my best to keep my stride relaxed as we approached the finish line at the Shelburne Athletic Club. I made a dash for the finish as we entered the final 400m. It worked and I crossed the finish line with seizing muscles. Literally 30 seconds after the finish I could barely walk. Talk about needing that finish line!

The best part of it all - Helen was the lead biker for the race (as in the person on a bike who rides just ahead of the runners). So, that's cool. And she did a great job too. Then, after the race there was amazing food from the Starry Night Cafe, that swank restaurant down in Ferrisburg. I could barely move my legs, but I was happy as could be as my sister, Dan, Helen, and I sat and chit-chatted on my porch. It was a short lived moment though - because I had to hop in the shower and it was off to work at the Skirack.

So, if you see me hobbling around Burlington in the next week, or hear story of such a thing, you will know why. The time was 1:21. Not amazing, but not bad considering. And wait until Dan Cassidy gets going. He putting it together, one stride at a time. Pictures to come...

Happy Halloween and P'ditty

Happy Halloween you guys. I went over to a big Halloween party with Helen. The party was over at my friend Kyle's house - Kyle works at the Skirack as well and it was a lot of folks from work there, so it was a fun crowd. This morning before I was leaving to work I opened my closet and just looked for whatever looked like it could pass for a costume. I grabbed a white thing with embroidery that my parents got for me from Bangladesh. Its sort of this robe/man-dress sort of thing. And I grabbed this crazy multi-colored vest to go with it. Sort of a Balki from Perfect Strangers type thing.

I road a Cervelo P3 (P'ditty) today for a couple hours. My friend Pete's summer boss just randomly gave Pete his P3 at the end of the summer. Pete told me to try it out, and it did, and that bike is way fast. I made it from the Mt. Philo Rd. and Spear St. Extension junction to where Spear St. and Swift St. cross in 30 minutes (riding on Spear St.).

I always find it hard to just ride easy on a TT bike. I don't know how triathletes just go out for a ride at base mile speed on a TT bike.