Zanesfield wrap

Did the predicted 58 degrees even get close to the “3 degree guarantee”? No way. It was cold and windy all day at the Tour of Logan County. I say Ben Gelper owes us whatever it is we get when the weatherman is wrong. And maybe the weather is the explanation why it was harder to go down (no rusty trombone jokes here) than up today.

The scheduled 3 laps of ten miles for the masters was combined with the cat. 4/5 race and we (Spartan Spirit, Tom ‘papa’ Will, and I) line up alongside mighty Scott Young, Honda Brian, Tym T and 4 other old guys. You know it is a masters race when the riders leave the start to take ‘one more leak’ before the gun...

Joining the festivities were Farmer John and Mr. 4% Dan Rhule in the cat. 3 and American Taliban (except he’s graduating soon so he’s got the haircut and shave thing going on) running in the Cat. 1/2/3.

The course kinda goes up, up, and up - very gently, before a seriously fast downhill into a right turn and 500 meter to the finish. The 4/5 factor added up to a very lumpy race that saw too many accelerations and way too many slow parts. But in the end the ordeal averaged 21 mph with my speed-o-meter registering 45 mph on the decent.

First lap had the aforementioned fast/slow/fast/slow rhumba, followed by that downhill where T. Will did his best Industrial Workers of the World, i.e. Wobblies move - wrestling the steering wheel almost into a 40 mph derma-abrasion treatment. Second lap and a few moves were made by the strong men, Conti and I followed wheels, not letting anything get away. Same with the third lap. A couple times Tym made his patented move, I jumped to follow, but he didn’t maintain. And we are all together.

On the downhill, Tym told me to grab his wheel and he would take me to the corner and 500 meters to go. And down we flew 50 x 11 - I hit the turn, but got caught behind a large yellow rider which messed my momentum. Reconfigured the sprint and maintained my position for 5th(?) overall and 1st of the masters.

MALABAR REPORT

You know where this one's going...


Diarrhea + Racing = No Results

Tuesday Nite Wrap Up

Mid-Ohio Tour

Dam, they’ve positioned me in the front of the line right in the middle of the big sweeping right turn before the final left-hander into the final 300 hundred meters. Is this going to be a repeat of last year’s race when Cadillac George came around for the win?

So that is how the end of the race set up, why not start at the beginning. Race number 3 in the Torelli Ohio Spring series and the turn out is healthy. Must be 40 guys in the 4/5, a dozen in my Masters race including the aforementioned GM product, Luca Brasi (with pneumonia), Mikey Rea, and our pal Scott “I own ever cycling toy in the catalog” Young (also with pneumonia). We had the proverbial ‘ah-oh’ moment at the start with Tym Tyler lining up with us again and fit racer from OU wearing his ‘masters’ number over his number for the 3 PM race. He planned to use us as his warm up. You know where that’s going.

We start a minute or so after the 4/5s (which included Dan-of-God) and in lap 3 of 16 Tym strolls off the front. I lineup behind Mr. Warmup - thinking he’s going to take me to his leader. Nothing doing, he sits. NOBODY CHASES. Okay, we never see Tym again. Round and round we go, half the guys blown out the back.




About lap 9 Rea-Rea wanders off the front, again - no chase. Hmm, 6 laps later Mr. Warmup decides he’s going to chase Mike down. accelerate, accelerate, and more acceleration. We are again gruppo compacto (Tym doesn’t count) and all know the our pal is just being kind, he could blow our doors off anytime he wants.

Last lap, and there’s no need to charge up the hill because the LONG downhill on the backside, which is into the wind and impossible to escape on. It’s going to be a sprint. And there I am in the front. What the hell, I accelerate at 300 meters - too far out, I get a nice jump = the monster comes around me but no one else...

grazie, grazie - third place.

Tuesday Nite's Alright For Fighting

You shoulda been there...the first Tuesday night throwdown rolled (shit, can't say that anymore) out from Delaware. OK, we decamped from Beehive and Breakaway in full force. All your cartoon favorites showed, Olympian Iowa Josh, Cadillac G, Farmer John, DJ T-WIll, American Taliban, Rea-Rea and his no-no jersey, Chairman Fred, and some tri-guy (we cut him a break). The temp was 75, no kidding 75 in March in Ohio - go figure.

It was like old times, from the gun everyone trying to rip the legs off of their best friends. Funny how that works, I've witnessed such tender acts of kindness between teammates off the bike, like when Conti taught Farmer John how to read (not big words) 2 years ago, Jeff Jackson sharing his chamois creme application tactics with T-Will, or Butch peeing off his bike while Mikey Rea holds his top tube (no jokes please). But once the tuesday ride rolls, oops, departs I get that 'you are DEAD TO ME' stare from Andy. Really gives you the shivers.

Nice ride last night, the MASTERS (such a nice term for old slow guys) regrouped into our own ride as the whipper snappers dropped us like a pregnant teenage girl friend. We labored into the gale force winds, and all screamed like little girls when we caught the tailwinds and sprinted at 30+ mph back home.

See you next week...

Tour of Knox County

What a difference a week makes. Last week we raced in 28 degree weather, today it was 45 degrees warmer! Needless to say, riders shed all the winter clothing in the parking lot and the start line look much better than last week.

Even Farmer John got into the spirit today. Only question is where do you apply the chamois creme?

But you didn’t tune in here to see salacious pictures, you surfed over to read about a bike race. For the pictures got to drunkcyclinst.com.

Here’s the dope. Seventy three degrees, 50 racers, a stacked Cat. 1/2 field and large 3/4 and 4/5 too. One COBSausage rider that got spanked early and went home before the race was over, more about that later. I was joined today by the Spartan Spirit Cadillac George, Farmer John, and our former chums Andy “Joe College” Will and the new Olympian Iowa Josh. Chairman Fred Parks made an appearance to watch, but I caught him talking up the girls in thongs a coupla times. But can you blame him?


Don’t call me hateful but Eric-the-1/2-a-bee COBSausage rider told us last December that ‘the team’ doesn’t do Tym Tyler races because the courses are not demanding and races not long enough! Yeah, right - ask anyone about the safe challenging roads today, I recorded speeds at 42 mph flying down the backside and a mere 8 mph doing nearly 450W on the climbs. Everyone was toast by the time the race was over, from the Cat. 2s to the Cat. 5s. And did I mention the only member of the Jimmy Dean squad to toe the start line went pop, pop, pop on lap one! Maybe 'the team' should reconsider their position, or take up touring with another group we know that likes to gently roll.

Your pal hung as long as he could, trying to match Tym’s accelerations after the climbs. I did it once, twice, but third time up I was cut free - untethered to ride with a few stragglers. The numbers were brutal - average 188W and 165 BPM, and that was with all the freewheeling downhills...

Congrats to Farmer John and Andy for his 2nd place in the Cat. 1/2 race...

It's early - see you at Mid-Ohio.

Let's End February with some Frosty-Bitten Toes

In every war movie ever made there’s a battlefield scene where some soldier yell’s out, “I can’t feel my legs!” Now, the annual Frosty Toes Road Race in beautiful Croton, Oh-HI-Oh won’t ever be mistook for a combat zone, but I kept hearing guys call out in today’s race, “I can’t feel my hands.”


Maybe the 28 degrees at the start and the winds gusting to 25 mph had something to do with it. But I’m not complaining, the fat sausage-head twins (your pick of Delaware’s own kielbasa or the Scottish banger) were no where to be seen today. We did have in attendance among the 40 starters, my hero Cadillac George, Man of Gawd Dan T, Farmer John, Luca Brasi Chambers and your pal Pantani.

It was a true Belgian classic, only without the beer. I wish I could tell you more but I was blown off the back and rode to the finish with a small group. Maybe next week I’ll have a real race story to tell...

We Should Have Seen It Coming

Now this all makes sense...

CHEERS!

With apologies to Monty Python

Constitutional Peasant Biker

Stuart: Old woman!
Dennis: Man!
Stuart: Man. Sorry. What knight lives in that castle over there?
Dennis: I'm thirty-seven.
Stuart: I-- what?
Dennis: I'm thirty-seven. I'm not old.
Stuart: Well, I can't just call you 'Man'.
Dennis: Well, you could say 'Dennis'.
Stuart: Well, I didn't know you were called 'Dennis'.
Dennis: Well, you didn't bother to find out, did you?
Stuart: I did say 'sorry' about the 'old woman', but from the behind you looked--
Dennis: What I object to is that you automatically treat me like an inferior!
Stuart: Well, I am King!
Dennis: Oh, King, eh, very nice. And how d'you get that, eh? By exploiting the racers! By 'anging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society. If there's ever going to be any progress with the--
Woman: Dennis, there's some lovely filth down here. Oh! How d'you do?
Stuart: How do you do, good lady? I am Stuart, King of Roll. Who's castle is that?
Woman: King of who?
Stuart: Roll.
Woman: Who are the Rollers?
Stuart: Well, we all are. We are all Rollers, and I am your king.
Woman: I didn't know we had a king. I thought we were an autonomous collective.
Dennis: You're fooling yourself. We're living in a dictatorship: a self-perpetuating autocracy in which the working classes--
Woman: Oh, there you go bringing class into it again.
Dennis: That's what it's all about. If only people would hear of--
Stuart:: Please! Please, good people. I am in haste. Who lives in that castle?
Woman: No one lives there.
Stuart: Then who is your team captain?
Woman: We don't have a team captain.
Stuart: What?
Dennis: I told you. We're an anarcho-syndicalist commune. We take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week,...
Stuart: Yes.
Dennis: ...but all the decisions of that officer have to be ratified at a special bi-weekly meeting...
Stuart: Yes, I see.
Dennis: ...by a simple majority in the case of purely internal affairs,...
Stuart: Be quiet!
Dennis: ...but by a two-thirds majority in the case of more major--
Arthur: Be quiet! I order you to be quiet!
Woman: Order, eh? Who does he think he is? Heh.
Stuart: I am your king!
Woman: Well, I didn't vote for you.
Stuart: You don't vote for kings.
Woman: Well, how did you become King, then?
Stuart: The Lady of the Lake,... [angels sing] ...her arm clad in the purest shimmering samite, held aloft the Maillot Jaune from the bosom of the water signifying by Divine Providence that I, Arthur, was to carry the Yellow Jersey. [singing stops] That is why I am your king!
Dennis: Listen. Strange women lying in ponds distributing jerseys is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
Stuart: Be quiet!
Dennis: Well, but you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just 'cause some watery tart threw a team kit at you!
Stuart: Shut up!
Dennis: I mean, if I went 'round saying I was an emperor just because some moistened bint had lobbed a scimitar at me, they'd put me away!
Stuart: Shut up, will you? Shut up!
Dennis: Ah, now we see the violence inherent in the system.
Stuart: Shut up!
Dennis: Oh! Come and see the violence inherent in the system! Help! Help! I'm being repressed!
Stuart: Bloody peasant!
Dennis: Oh, what a give-away. Did you hear that? Did you hear that, eh? That's what I'm on about. Did you see him repressing me? You saw it, didn't you?

Solving a fat Problem

Before:





sharpie solution:




After: