The Mid-July Thing—Railroad Tracks of Doom—Roglich is in this group—and a Beatdown of Days of Thunder….

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The Mid-July Thing—Railroad Tracks of Doom—Roglich is in this group—and a Beatdown of Days of Thunder….

So…..

It is indeed mid-July and I am in that state again wherein my legs are either awesomely filled with power or completely made of dead, soft wood.  That’s what she said.  But seriously I get bewildered this time of year in regards to training because most of the base I built up in the winter and spring is withering away and all I do is hard group rides during the week for training coupled with a few of my own secret recipe vo2 intervals and sprints and that is a good way to get very fast while paradoxically losing most of your fitness.  It’s true.  Go read any number of REAL scholarly journal articles on the subject of periodization and you will soon arrive at the same dead-end road that I am on and we will meet and have a beer and talk about it.  

It is difficult to actually do real training in the middle of summer.  (by the way, I just used TWO spaces at the end of that last sentence, right up ——here^ because that is the way you should write)  During my typical week, I race on Saturday and Sunday (hopefully)—then do either a recovery ride on Monday or, if my legs are good, a very hard ride.  Tuesday is a hard group ride, usually Nebo, Wednesday could be either good or bad, depending on whether or not I remembered to pay the wizard over on that bridge at Little Eagle Creek and 146th.  Thursday and Friday I just try and eat as many M&Ms as possible while I am at work and ride usually an hour and a half each day in order to get as much recovery as possible before the weekend.  I have forsaken openers for the time being.  They are too difficult and I cannot and will not be bothered by them.  Walking around trying to find registration will serve as my openers this time of year.  Josh, Brooke, Jeff, Dave, Dom…do as I SAY and not as I DO…or, in this case, do as I write in Training Peaks and not as I write in this essay.  I am a lost soul on the road to burnout and the jimmy-legs and you should NOT attempt to do what I do this time of year.  It is a cruel and desperate time and it is about to hit its peak.  And when it does that I usually start………………………………………………………………………………running.

Now that we have that out of the way (the Mid-July Thing), we can get down to business.  First order of the night is the sad little band of misfits that gathered together to do the Village of West Clay ride, or as it is more commonly known, the Zipp Ride.  I have been doing this ride more often this year when I am not racing or working and I kind of like it.  The Zipp Ride, the VWC Ride, the Long Loop, whatever you want to call it…it is a good ride.  A ride for people who really like long stretches of very painful and sometimes worrisome pedaling.  This is not crit training.  It is straight up, just ride and rotate and go as hard as you can and make the paceline go as fast as possible up this road which is colloquially known as the Road to Hell until you get to Lebanon.  It is usually very windy and the group normally contains many strong-like-bull riders who are all too happy to drop your miserable ass and leave you in the gutter on their way up to Hell/Lebanon.  The roads are long and straight and made of chip-seal and in the spring and fall when the corn is down it is a very miserable place to ride…period.  But not today.

Today was terrific and wondrous and interesting and I liked it.  Bri met me at my house and we rode over to VWC thinking the normal group would be there and we would do the normal ride.  Justin had also committed.  I was looking forward to pedaling quickly with the Zippies and Neal and the Ortho Indy guys as per usual but that was not to happen today, no sir…not today.  Today, with the threat of potential gentle rain showers, only four brave souls came out to play.  Bri, Justin, Kyle Perry, and myself.  What were we to do?  Well, we just went and had ourselves a nice little adventure out in the wide open world where anything is possible and freedom reigns and people piss outside and the railroad crossings are evil bastards.  

We decided just to sort of cruise over to the general area of the Road to Hell and make our own route.  It was fun.  Yes, it rained on us a little bit but it wasn’t cold and the drops were more misty-like and it was actually sort of pleasant.  We just rode low tempo pace in a more or less southwesterly direction until we hit Brownsburg and then we turned north and started our way up to Lebanon/Hell.  Then I think Zeus was up in his cloud city playing with our little bike-rider statues like he did in the first Clash of the Titans movie where he could make things happen on earth just by moving pieces around on his giant magic globe thingy.  I loved that movie.  Perseus and his little gold stop-motion owl.  Speaking of Perseus, that rat bastard still owes me a lot of rent money and his goddam shield is still in the basement.  If he doesn’t pay me pretty soon I am going to sell that thing to a pawn shop.  I assume it is made of real gold as he is Zeus’ favorite.  Anyway, I have to assume that Zeus jerked the railroad tracks up just as we were crossing them because my rear wheel bounced about a foot up in the air and a foot sideways and Bri crashed.  I turned around and she was on the ground with a bloody elbow and a wonky rear brake.  No real damage or carnage so that was good but what shit luck (or was it? ;)  So we fixed up Bri and her bike and were about to start riding again and then I flatted!  I assume it was the bounce over the tracks that caused it…Kyle found a little piece of road grit in my tire.  Changed the tube and wiped all the grease off my hands with some Indiana roadside fescue and on we rode.  And then???  Kyle’s crank disintegrates while he is pedaling and he is left with two crank arms stuck to two pedals stuck to two shoes stuck to two feet…but none of them connected in the middle.  Just an empty bottom bracket shell and some dude coasting down the Road to Hell FULL SPREAD EAGLE with his thousand-dollar power cranks dangling from his feet like two little impotent clock-chimes.  It was maybe the funniest thing I have ever seen on a ride.  We all scrambled to get our phones out to film this circus act but he coasted to a stop too fast.  We snapped a few good pics though and much laughter was enjoyed by all.  Bri had an 8mm hex so Kyle put his suspect crank back together and……..on we rode.   

The rest of the ride was great.  Nothing noteworthy, just a nice, pleasant pace and no rain and we got to enjoy a decent little tailwind on the way back from Sheridan.  So… there you have it.  The Railroad Tracks of Doom tried to do us in but we persevered and turned lemons into martinis (with a twist of course) and had a genuinely fun and interesting ride which was not too difficult but long enough to call it training.  

Now on to Roglich.  All I have to say is that the group containing Roglich is bridging up to the group containing Roglich and Roglich is in that group.  This is a dangerous group; Roglich is in there.  Chris Froome better keep an eye on that group containing Roglich.  This group has twelve seconds on the group containing Primoz Roglich.  It looks like Roglich might be in this group!  Roglich.  Roglich. 

Roglich

Primoz Roglich.  ‘nuff said.

I was going to do a savage beatdown of Days of Thunder, which I have been playing on repeat at the store for the last week, but I have run out of time.  Suffice to say that this movie is so damned bad that it is great.  I mean that in the likeness of such wondrous films as Roadhouse, Rocky 4, and Point Break.  All three of which are guilty pleasures of ALL OF YOU and two of which contain the late, great Swayze and his flowing, golden locks of pure ecstasy.  

I’m off now.  Hitting the hay.  Eyes getting heavy.  I bet we wouldn’t have had such bad luck today if Roglich were in our group…

National Terrify Animals Day

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Welp, the fireworks are about to start and my dogs are about to enter the loony zone and I don’t have time for this right now.  It is Wednesday and Independence Day all in one and that means that most of us have to go to work tomorrow.  I cannot sleep when goddamn rockets are thumping all night and the neighbors are having a patio party with screaming children and some kind of bird.  They have a Myna bird or a Macaw or something.  The thing screeches all day because they leave it outside all the time in its cage covered with a blanket or table cloth.  I imagine that must be a great life.  I’d be swearing like George Carlin if I was that bird.  

Anyway it’s noisy as hell outside and I just don’t like fireworks.  Never have.  Ohhh well maybe when I was a teenager and I was setting shit on fire all the time and blowing up mailboxes with Worx bombs and generally doing hooligan stuff with gunpowder and potato guns and ether and, yes, fireworks.  But that was a long time ago and I am clearly a different person now, the evidence being that I have a wife and she has stayed with me for seven years so far.  So I must have went Crazy Ivan somewhere back there in the 2000s and cleaned my act up.  And I am so sorry that I have run off topic as usual.  I hate fireworks now.  I don’t shoot them off anymore and I don’t like listening to them.  I don’t mind seeing them…but I cannot find it in me to appreciate the loud banging.  I get it…bombs bursting in air and mortars sending shells over those ancient walls standing heavy with hope so long ago but the problem is that my dogs think it is the apocalypse.  So they get to shivering and quivering and smashing themselves as close to Beth and I as possible and if we get up to pee or get something to eat they walk in between our legs as we walk along.  Anyway it’s not fair to them because dogs are people too and Walter even talks…in his own strange maowaowow way.  

All I ask is that you simply stop shooting off fireworks and go inside and read a nice book in a quiet room and if you need to see fire, just light some scented candles.  Cool?  Great…..

Now that that’s settled we can get down to brass tacks:  What is the best way to cook a Myna bird?  I heard somewhere that they can sense predators and have as a defense mechanism the ability to sing Kid Rock songs until said predator runs away in agony or at least extreme annoyance.  We have coyotes around here and I think I heard that bird doing Only God Knows Why the other day and I found a dead coyote on 141st Street when I started my ride.  It had blood streaming from its ears and nose and it had obviously shit itself due to the fact that Kid Rock is capable of reproducing the Brown Note.  And all that nonsense doesn’t even matter but it is true and I thought it worthy of a mention.  So I think I’ll cook the bird in a cast iron skillet with brown butter and some peppers, carmelized onions, leeks, and dress the thing with a bed of risotto.  

On to bikes… I did the annual Parade Ride today with Bri and Company.  This ride leaves the Smokey Row school on 136th Street and travels north to Sheridan, at which time we join the Sheridan parade route and toss candy to all the kiddos lining the streets of the downtown area.  The ride is pretty chill and tons of people show up.  Bri is the queen of the ride and Harry is her begrudging servant.  The story is that they were on a ride about five years ago and just happened to be riding through Sheridan when they stumbled into the parade going through the main drag down town.  Apparently the town folk really liked the group of patriotic cyclists and thusly the group agreed to make the happy event an annual tradition.  And so it goes and so it went today and the group has swelled to around 100 people give or take 30 or 40…I am bad at estimation.  Anyway it is truly a fun, leisurely, social ride and I enjoy doing it.  Plus I got in 65 miles in Zone 2 which is just what I need right now because I am tired from standing all day at the shop and racing crits on the weekends.  

Beth and I spent the rest of the day doing Our Thing, which is going to Cafe Patachou, Lowes to look at paint colors because we are painting the inside of the house soon, and preparing to drug our dogs in advance of the coming armageddon.  Racing is going well…Justin and I got decent results at Madeira last weekend and twisted ourselves inside out trying to create breakaways at Hyde Park but no one was having any of it and we were chased down every time until eventually two other guys took advantage of the shells of ourselves we had become and got away for the win.  Felipe won the field sprint for second in the 40+.  Brooke won the women’s 3/4 and then went on to help Bri get onto the podium in the women’s Pro 1/2/3 race.  Jake Richards rode well in the men’s 4/5 race and I expect big things from him in the coming months and years.  His brother Josh is nearly mended from the broken scaphoid bone in his hand and will be strong later in the year.  So Zone-6 Endurance is coming along nicely and I am very satisfied with this team and their attitude and work ethic.  We have whittled it down quite a lot, as I expected, but there are two hungry beasts about to be unleashed on the INKY region and they are called Dave Holtkamp and Dom Fiore.  I coach them both and all I can say is that when I think about them, I hear Blackened by Metallica playing very loudly in my head.  And sometimes Seek and Destroy.  

The goddamn fireworks are at full throttle right now and Walter is running up and down the stairs and down the hall and looking through all the windows and pacing and whining and I’m about to start my ritual of walking around barefoot to the homes that are shooting mortars and telling them that I have a newborn that is frightened and crying.  It has worked in the past.  I am a very convincing fabricator…a skill I honed long ago creating marvelous stories to tell my parents about where I had been when really I had been blowing things up with fireworks and homemade explosives.  And ohhhh hey ho weren’t those the days?  …I mean, nights.

Weldin's Racin' and a few thoughts on Wankers who shoot fireworks at 1 AM

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So it’s the time of year when I start to break down, mentally and physically, due to the demands of working and the wild world of bike racing.  Yesterday I raced at Madeira and today I raced at Hyde Park.  Last year I won at Lawrenceburg on the same weekend and got second at Hyde.  This year the results were not so good.  Justin Wonder Boy and I tried to make our little two person team do the work of a five person team, knowing that we had to contend with the Texas Roadhouse Cowboys, led by the recently crowned masters nation champion Marco Aledia.  

So Madeira started hot and fast, as expected, and by the time we hit the first turn we were doing 30.  Marco led the first lap to show off the jersey and we all sort of just fell into line…I guess we all just felt like letting him have a glory lap or something…which was warranted, for sure.  Then the attacks started.  I was sorta hoping that the Riverpoint guys would be very active in this race, and they were, to an extent.  We’ve raced them many times now and I know they are a good team with some fast and fit riders.  I mean, hell, they have Jon Card, OB Forbes, Jason Karew, etc… so they should be attacking and trying to get away…and if they did, one of us would join them and be happy to work and I am sure that a Roadhouse would do the same.  Buuutt, nnoooooOOOOOOOoooooo………  This was going to be one of those races where one person attacks, gets a gap, is joined by one or two others, and then is chased down almost immediately by Riverpoint or one of the smaller teams or privateers that always show up ready to race, but not quite ready to work hard in a break.  And thusly it has been in the masters for the past few years.  Very negative racing.  Very boring.  Guys just wanting to sit in and sprint…strong enough to weld the field back to the break but not strong enough to actually engage in a break and work.  It’s been very frustrating lately.  I realize that not everyone has time to train enough to be fit enough to be a player but shit, man…if you would just take your turn at the front and roll through you might surprise yourself with…..what?  A breakaway that actually sticks because it has a good percentage of the teams represented and everyone is willing to at least roll through, even if they don’t put too much effort into their pull.  And by “you”, I mean every single masters racer who pulls that negative shit (described above) and then gets his wish and sprints it out for 13th place or something and THEN goes to the beer garden to get drunk and watch the P,1,2 race later in the day.  Well maybe not all of them go and get drunk but it’s hard not to at Hyde Park what with all that party atmosphere and the beer stands and the Bon Jovi cover band (or whatever that was…it was so fekkin loud I nearly put in earplugs).  Wait…was it Whitesnake?  White Lion?  Great White?  Betty White?  I’m sure it had the word “white” in it. 

Anyway Justin actually got in a break that stuck and so all I had to do was sit and wait for the field sprint.  Justin rode well, as he always does, with Ben Weaver, Bo Sherman, and a few other guys evidently rotating pretty well.  Marco, Matt Bole, Kroll, and I tried bridging across many times but the field kept welding it back together due to their congenital need to not be picked last on the kickball team.  We rode pretty hard and it was super hot and humid and my ice sock melted in three seconds and shame on me for not being rich enough to buy one of those pro cooling vests to wear during my warmup.  The middle part of the race was, like I said, attack after attack until we realized that nothing was going to stick and we were not going to bridge to that break.  And I definitely did not want to pull the entire field up because I had Justin up there and he can lay down a pretty solid sprint.  So after we realized it was NOT coming back, Roadhouse started sending Bole off the front solo to bridge.  I could not go with him because if I did, the field would chase us down.  But if he went solo, the field would let him go…for reasons that I do not fully understand (reminder: find out why some people find joy in racing for fourth place).  So I stayed back with the group and watched placidly as Matt rolled off uncontested to claim the last place on the podium.  I did get to edge Marco in the field sprint and that is sort of cool I guess…sniff…  but really not because it was for fourth and fourth place in a bike race is kind of like eating egg whites.  Not very fekkin satisfying.

All good though, got in some very hard efforts all weekend and I should be coming full force heading into Indy Crit and then Intelligentsia.  And Please don’t forget about the Heroes Crit and Fit on July 28.  It’s in Pendleton this year and should be a very well organized and top notch event with a sweet course on mostly newly paved roads.  So watch out for me in the corners because I will not slow down for you.  You will need to pedal hard to catch back on.  I mean it.  

— El Conchristador

PS — I just realized that this was sort of a rant.  It was mostly all true stuff though and I just felt like writing it.  But I’m actually in a pretty good mood lately despite the fact that I need to catch up on about a zillion hours of sleep.  

PPS — Hyde Park was even hotter and we rode around and tried many many times to create a move but see above for description of the Welding Wankers and their marvelous tactics.  

PPPs — Gray Goat - Bullseye is still kicking ass and taking names and so is Zone-6 Endurance.  I’m proud of the teams and look forward to their continued development.  Shout out to Brooke Hannon who needs to have weights and shackles added to her bike and ankles to make it fair in her races.  Congrats on the success and welcome to GGB!

Oh one more thing:  to anyone shooting fireworks off long after the designated times set out by the city of Carmel, I will find you and take away your lighters and matches and cigarettes and cigars and whatever else you use to scare the piss out of my pups and annoy the hell out of me and break them loudly in front of you.  

That is all