Friday, July 15, 2011

Ninety-Twosday....Logan’s Run.....Langan can climb?....From Gnats to Bats.....and an Eagle Creek Wrap-up.






So the Festival of Hammers was, once again, Hot as Balls and I am now at the point where 92 just feels normal. I drink around three gallons of water a day and still don’t have water intoxication or cerebral edema so I guess I’m okay. And the weather forecast for the next ten days looks like more of the same. Joy! Remember last summer when it was over 90 for about 40 days straight? Yeah I do too. It reminds me of a Simpsons episode when Homer attached a tent to the open refrigerator in their kitchen and created a cold room where he could relax in his tight-whites. Fun stuff.

Anyway Le Tour de Cyntheanne was really hard this week! We all rode fast and aggressive and smooth, with the possible exception of Crazy Legs Troiano, aka The Bat...who is extremely strong but who is more accustomed to doing wretched triathlons instead of bike races (or simulated races like said Festival). I hope he doesn’t read this because I don’t want to offend him, he is a great friend from way back in the day but, T, you frighten me sometimes in the line! But no matter. LIke I said, we were all riding well and on the first ascent of the 238 hill, Mr. Langan rode 30+ up the thing while seated and I really thought he was going Kamikaze Death March and his big legs were going to rip apart like that guy in the Animatrix when he figured out he was not real...but none of that was the case. He simply finished his pull and drifted back about four places and continued to rotate. I think we were all flabbergasted (sp?). Apparently Mikey is back from his sojourn to slowsville and is ready to get it on. I saw him pumping away furiously on numerous occasions the whole ride trying to make things hard. And maybe, just maybe one of the reasons he did this thing was because of Eagle Creek the Sunday before (sorry dude). In his own words...”I forgot to bring my b_lls”.

So we pretty much just rode fast for five laps without much in the way of bad craziness...just good old hard riding. Even Green Giant was riding well and rotated in sync with everyone, except for when he attacked every single time up 238 hill to get a 10 meter gap. I understand now though...he just wants the ride to be harder. And apparently just taking longer pulls is not enough. But whatever. If I’m a sprinter, I want to work on my WEAKNESSES during a ride like this (taking long pulls at LT), not just sprinting up hills at every opportunity and then drifting peacefully back to the line while recovering. But, again, whatever. What’s important is that the gnats were not too bad on Tuesday.....

.....BUT...the ROCKS WERE!!! Just ask Logan Park, who decided to stop on the side of the road on the last lap and crush boulders with his helmet and elbow for some reason. See pictures above. I don’t know exactly what happened because I was leading up the hill when I heard a loud CRACK. I immediately thought snapped fork, or femur. Then I heard someone shout “HOLD UP, HOLD UP...MAN DOWN!” So we all stopped and then everything went to slow-motion and for some reason we all went deaf and became nearly paralyzed while we surveyed the scene through the smoke and flying debris from the cluster bombs and burning tires all over the place. I saw Tom Hanks crouched down behind the remnants of an exploded tank...and he looked terrified. Damian was pacing back and forth, sort of tapping his hand against his thigh and jabbering to himself and looking for fingers and toes. Don was on his knees by the fallen youth with his arms raised toward the Heavens...tears streaming down his powder-burned face. I jammed my hand violently down into my jersey pocket looking for a morphine syringe but all I could find was a Hammer Gel...it would have to do. I swallowed the thing as quick as I could and sprinted to where the wounded boy was quivering on a pile of razor-sharp shrapnel. I asked him if he had a note for his father. He said that he didn’t but asked if I could tell his mom that “THIS THING I DID MATTERED!!!” Blood on the highway and crumpled yellow heap of teenager. I gently took his head in my arms and rocked him and rocked him and all I could think of to say was “You were good, kid...you were good, and do you mind if I strip your bike down and sell it for parts?” And then Tom Hanks conked me in the temple with the butt of his rifle and everything went black.

Well...at least that’s the way I see the Spielberg version of things. At any rate, there was blood and Logan was quite still for a few minutes but...the MOB Squad kit needed a bit more red on it anyway. I now christen 136th street between 238 and Prairie Baptist road to be “Logan’s Run”. And the rock garden into which the kid fell should be called “Logan Park”. It should also be called that because we all sort of had an impromptu picnic on the beautiful lawn there behind the rocks while waiting for the ambulance. It was actually quite nice! Gorgeous weather and nicely-manicured grass with just a hint of a breeze...and horses playing in the meadow next door. So...thanks Logan! And I’m glad you are not broken. Kid was strong the whole ride with numerous pulls and no fear. He has good potential. Mario is a genius at nurturing/encouraging/training talent with these youngsters. I wish I had had a guy like that when I was just starting to ride...instead of wasting my time pole-vaulting and trying to find more Mickey’s Big Mouths.

And with that whole scene wrapping up with the arrival of the Fishers Fire Brigade (ambulance and...fire truck? why a fire truck?) we decided to mosey back to the school without duking it out for the finish. Mikey had lots of Cokes in a cooler which were nice. Coke is the best first-line recovery drink you can have. Pure sugar and caffeine. I would have liked to have had (weird sentence) a nice IPA also but I have to drive to Z-Ville these days so booze is not such a good thing until I get home. Would have liked to have had--that’s like a a double past-perfect infinitive! Weirdly clumsy-sounding but I can think of no other way to do it. Oh well...

So Eagle Creek: Eagle Creek Traditional Crit went as follows: 35ish riders in 1-2-3 race go off and immediately a four-rider break goes away. No one in the field gives it any attention and within a few laps they have 30 seconds. Leibowitz attacks many times but the entire field chase him down every time and no one else (myself included) even tries to get away. Four-rider break wins the day with Joey Iuliano taking honors and Brett Stewart (who is my Zipp inside rep) rounding things out. The most interesting thing that happened, though, is that Graham Dewart, who is a Junior (I think) took a flyer with a few laps left and ended up holding the field off for a very respectable fifth place...solo. Also, I heard that with about a lap to go he projectile-vomited all the way down the finishing straight to the delight and wild cheers of the tens of people in the stands, er...grass on the side of the road. Leibowitz wins the field sprint and I get 12th, due to a Nuvo rider deciding to coast his way in on the right, blocking half the field after starting the sprint in a perfectly-reasonable position near the front. No biggie. That was my first race in like a year. I’m doing INDYCRIT next week so that should be fun and I hope to not get dropped like a bad habit.

Did you ever notice that Thomas Voeckler always looks like he’s near death? I bet he’s lost a couple of millimeters off his teeth over the years from the grinding. I wonder if he does that face when he washes dishes, or ties his shoes, or gets his mobile-phone bill in the mail.

Laterissimo

Friday, July 8, 2011

tomatoes

The maters are getting big now. They grow and grow and suck up water like Bounty. They are about four feet tall and almost too bushy. I estimate around 50-60 total tomatoes in various stages of ripeness. The goal is to make a helluva sauce one of these days. We also have a bunch of cayennes growing like mad right next to the maters. I ate one last night but they're not yet getting any heat. My impatience is legendary in these matters...I hate waiting. But these things take time. And so it goes for my farmer imitation.

I am watching the Tour right now. Very boring stage. Very flat. Very formulaic. This is why I don't pay as much attention anymore to pro racing. It just isn't very exciting. We all know what's going to happen, to a pretty good degree of certainty. On flat stages like this, everyone will ride "tranquilo" for most of the stage while a doomed breakaway goes up the road for their sponsor's tv-time. Then around 30K out, the peloton will start to ride hard to catch them. At around 10K out, the teams will be pretty well organized and the leadout trains will start to form. 5K out is time for consolidation of the trains and the sorting out of the contenders from the pretenders. 2K out is time for a crash and maybe someone takes a flyer off the front in vain, unless it's Cancellara. 1K out is full gas and maybe another flyer. Then all hell breaks loose and someone wins. Pretty much the same thing every flat stage. So it's really silly to watch the whole thing IMO. From 20K on it is good though. Right now they are at 118K out and I wonder why it's even on...

So I'll probably finish this cup and go ride myself for a couple hours. I'm gonna go racing this weekend so I don't totally waste this form I've found. I'll catch the replay later when I get to work. Hopefully no bonehead comes in and blurts out the winner while I'm watching. But no worries. Bike riding is fun stuff and I'm fortunate to have something like this in my life. It is my true church, after all.

I just saw Jens Voigt. He is great. I don't know if he uses drugs or not...probably so. I believe most of them do. But Jens at full-gas is the most perfect display of pure effort I've ever seen. That guy would swallow a live grenade if it meant he could go a half MPH faster. He is like an ostrich with rabies hunting tigers in the desert. He is a hunter who's gun jams so he just throws bullets at an elephant until it falls. He has no knees...just double-jointed ankles and four-foot quads. He practiced holding his breath until he could do it all night to increase his O2 capacity. He eats polar bear stew and drinks his own blood in his hut on top of K2...for strength. What a dude...

I think I'll go ride now. I see the sun. What a beautiful thing to go ride in the sun. Gotta breathe these days in and say Thank You to God for making all this.