do i still ride mountain bikes?

that's a darn good question. i haven't ridden a mountain bike off road in more than a month. it's pathetic. what's the problem?

the weather hasn't cooperated. it's always wet when i have an opportunity. i don't have the opportunity because, well, life gets in the way. i could go on and on with the excuses. bottom line: i haven't made the time. all this worry about my road riding and training causes off-roading to take a back seat. how ironic, since riding on the road improves my off-roading!

at least i don't have to worry about what i would ride, if, you know, i was able to go off-roading.

there's the red homegrown. it's been upgraded from a street machine to off-road status again. i parted it up nicely with x-9, avid ti brakes, a spankin' new sid, and the kaiser's old crossmax wheels. it's coming in at 22.5 pounds. very solid machine. it saw duty from about september last year until november.

the primary race bike is up in the air. it shouldn't be, but it is. there is the ventana el fuego, which is built to be the star. xtr and sram xo. niiiiice. never even been ridden. but hanging up in the basement is the orbea oiz. it keeps calling me. i loved the ride of that bike, and it's not very dignified to let it hang. there is no way that i am going to put both together and ride them both...none of them get ridden as it is. so it looks like i have a decision on which to put together and which to discard like yesterdays laundry.

all of which will be a distant worry next week when i'm on my way to arizona to ride with schvonzie. i'm hoping he doesn't drop me on mt. lemon. hell, i'll just be happy to be riding on mt. lemon. maybe he'll have mercy on my old bones. or, maybe i should just bring my mountain bike and give him a good schoolin'....uh, nah, i guess not. i don't even ride mountain bikes anymore, right?

boring power meter stuff

i'm guessing that unless you're a information geek like me, things like power meter numbers bore you to death. plus, are anybody else's power number relevant at all to anyone else? probably not. but because i know so many people that train with power, i'm going to put up my first 7 months worth of data. just the peak numbers for given periods. ignore this post if it bores you. and yes, i'm well aware that most guys that weigh as much as me can probably put out much higher numbers...that's ok, i'll just use the excuse that i'm old and fat. these are normalized:

5 second power: 1291

30 second power: 733

1 minute power: 534

5 minute power: 365

10 minute power: 322

30 minute power: 285

60 minute power: 275

120 minute power: 265

the way my training has been structured, i never go for max numbers...the numbers always come out of a grouping of intervals. for example, i never go out, warm up, and try to post the hottest 1 minute power for the sake of my records. my one minute intervals always come out of minute on/minute off exercises, so the key element is consistency. or, they come from climbing out of the saddle, which naturally requires some pretty high efforts, but at the expense of the over the top speed. there is no "max effort" so i can brag about the numbers. could i post better numbers? probably, but then they would be useless in my training, because just posting a high number doesn't help me get faster.

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another example is my 5 or 10 minute power numbers. those numbers have been achieved not in intervals, but in harder long workouts.

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i think one of the dangers of getting a power meter is going out and stomping on the pedals and bragging to your friends. what good does that do? the real value of the power meter devices is to use the information to see how you improve, and you get to see where waste is, where you feel most comfortable, what heart rates correspond to what outputs, etc.

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taken out of context, the numbers are meaningless. because i keep all the workouts on file, i can go back and see exactly when and how some of the numbers are made, and then similar workouts in the future can have some context, some real use.

weekends-out of control

i've said several times that weekends here are just out of control. not completely unlike a frat party weekend, with booze, babes, and buffoonery. maybe a little. we have the noise. we have the mess. we have the spilled liquids (and perhaps body fluids). we have shouting. oh, we have the babes (hanna and the beautiful mrs k) and the buffoonery. i guess we're just lacking the booze.

we had a big mcdonald's morning saturday, along with the funland indoor playground. tyson managed to clear out the upper section when, uh, he forgot his manners in a very frat boy kind of way. another boy in the vicinity kept uttering loudly how much it "reeked". deanna got in a run, and i had one of my best rides in months. antibiotics? cold? they got nuthin' on me. later, after pork chops, green beans, and brown rice, we hit the movies. i have to say, water horse is one of the best family movies we've seen in a while. don't hate on it until you've seen it.

after yet another sleepless night courtesy of our small frat boy. just like frat boys, he never knows when to call it quits, never wants to go to bed, usually smells, is always eating, needs attention, and still manages to make everyone think he's so cute. we all got up to go to church anyway, with a detour to starbucks along the way. i rode the trainer for a spell. hanna and tyson made more home made videos. they also made some cookies, which i am trying really hard to avoid overindulging in. we hung some picture frames and some curtain rods. deanna tagged everything in the house with her new label maker, including the dogs. i think there is a label on the fridge that says "fridge." folded laundry. wrote in blog. zzzzzzzzzzz.

(i'd make a terrible frat boy.....)

Pantera du jour

love it or hate it, this high impact orange color has been used on a lot of cars the last couple of years. ford did a good job in promoting it's new edge with it, as did pontiac with the g6 gt's. this '73 pantera is obviously a show car, and i imagine that in real life it's paint is a mile thick of this gorgeous orange. i for one, am a fan of the color.

i don't know how the owner of this car would ever get the guts to drive it outside. i can't have anything nice, because i'm always afraid of hurting it. i'm the kind of guy who needs to have someone else put the first scratches on something really cool so i can then enjoy it. i'm pretty sure i could get at least a few runs through the gears on a nice day if there was a few nicks in the paint, though....

let's not have a repeat

there was more than one factor that precipitated my cry of "no mas!" just before the start of last year's racing season.

although my training seemed to be going good in january and february of '07, i got sick 3 times in rapid succession, punctuated by my infamous sinus infection/nonstop coughing. it happens to me every year, but last years was a doozy. i was so sore from coughing, i felt i broke a rib. add that to the "eli situation" and it was apparent that racing just wasn't in the cards. it's so hard to get moving when your legs get kicked out from underneath you.

so i was naturally pretty alarmed at the beginning of the week when i felt the sinus symptoms creeping in. i halted my workouts, started a dreadful regimen of home spun therapy, and finally gave in to antibiotics. problem hopefully solved.

i've never felt so close to being able to race in january before. could it be attitude? maybe. i was so not ready to finish racing in 2007, and maybe i'm still carrying a bit of that over. maybe i'm also not out of shape. riding doesn't hurt; it feels great, as tony the tiger is prone to say.

the more i think about it, the more i think that my break last year was a Godsend.

when the phone rings

hey dad! dan's on the phone and he's asking if you're going to race with the THF guys this year. you gonna do it dad? huh, dad? c'mon, dad, it'll be fun! think of all the cool guys on the team and how you might be able to help them win some races! c'mon!

uh, dan? can dad call you back? my diaper has lost that fresh feeling. does he have your number?

help a friend, donate to a cause

chris is a friend of mine from way back. we worked, trained, raced, and even got drunk together at blueberry hill. he's doing something really cool and would really appreciate some help and it goes to a good cause, as well.

go HERE to check it out

finally

this kid fights sleep like underdog fights criminals. after laying him on our bed at 11pm, he crawled underneath my pillow and went to sleep. a strong den instinct, maybe? is he secretly related to rosco?

falling is a bummer, get well dianne

a friend of ours got hurt on her bike today. president of the ghisallo cycling club, dianne, fell on the monday morning ride. just a fluke accident, and she'll be in the hospital for a while. she broke her pelvis and a rib and a bone in her neck. such a shame. we were very happy that she was wearing a helmet (she always does!!!!) and the helmet is now broken, so it saved her from a serious head injury as well.

she will probably be inundated with get well wishers tomorrow at the hospital...everyone who meets her loves her.

anyone who wants more info can give us a call at the store tomorrow.

traffic?

has the shutdown of I-64 in st. louis been the armageddon that it was supposed to be? no, not really, i guess. it isn't much fun. traffic does suck at different times of the day in different directions.

what's weird is how traffic has circumvented the area. i rode to work this morning and didn't find clayton road too bad, like i thought. but geyer was HARSH. ???? why geyer? and watson heading toward crestwood was heavy. south city dwellers heading for 44/270, i guess?

driving home, we found lindbergh to be curiously light on traffic....easy to figure that one out. no traffic funneling in or out at hwy 40. it was weird to see that godforsaken bridge just GONE. good riddance. that thing belonged in the 5o's. the shortest, tightest entrance and exits in the whole dang city, i think.

i'll be glad to see the whole shebang finished. i'm hoping for the best...an expressway without the tortured hills and turns and tight shoulders. but, you know what? most modern road designers concede that drivers will flood a vacuum. so whatever, wherever that new, cool, wide road is, is where ALL the traffic goes. so, is the new I-64 project doomed already, before the first car drives on it's yet-to-be-finished tarmac? i don't know. highway 44 has always been a pretty smooth moving highway, built wide, with wide shoulders and smooth entrance and exit ramps. built to be a real highway first, rather than a two lane grown into a highway like 40/64.

i'll hope for the best. in the mean time, me and the missus will try to search out the best ways to get to and from the west....when we drive, that is.

record high temps!

saturday wasn't so great, but i took it for early january. it was 50 degrees and windy. i took the new bike out for a solid 55 miles. i was wasted after fighting the wind and my lack of endurance. i dragged around the rest of the day, and the beautiful mrs k and i stole out of the house to eat at chava's in soulard. we both sat at the table and stared at each other, her tired from eli's marathon days and nights, me tired from riding. we perked up when dinner came, and even shared a fantastic desert. we got coffee afterward so we could face the music when we got home, but eli went down without too much drama.

after church, the mrs and i went for a ride together. more wind, but it was a frighteningly warm afternoon at 73 degrees. 6 degrees above the previous record. after 2 hours together, she headed home and i went for another hour and for whatever reason felt great. i hit a cool loop a couple of times that included lindeman, doherty ferry, barrett station, big bend, ballas, west adams and lindeman again.

i made a trifecta out of it by riding to work this morning, something i hadn't done in a long while. it was great, but windy again. the roads were soaked with condensation, and the orca was trashed when i got to work. but i'm feeling fantastic. it's a wonder what a bit of riding can do for the soul, especially when fitness comes so quickly.

hold the mullet, please!

i have never been much of a camaro fan. the exception is the 1970 1/2 to 1973's. very clean, taught lines...then it was over. from that point on, it seemed that the only thing camaro's were good for was a good laugh. never mind that they were fast. they were mullet cars. if you're a camaro fan, my apologies...sorry 'bout that mullet.

but if the 2009 camaro actually comes to fruition, i will be shopping that just like i'll be shopping the dodge challenger. these ponycar remakes are just too good to pass up. i like (not love) the 2005+ mustangs, so my wandering eye has wandered on over to the chevy and dodge stores.

this thing promises to be a monster, just like the challenger.

time will tell.

summer frantic?

it seems like summer around here.

no, not because it's warm. obviously, it's still the dead of winter. but because i have so many things are going on.

there's work. we had a staff meeting tonight to do some serious patting on the back for the people that made it happen this year. there is the thf team merchandise that i have to take care of. it's not hard at all, just always another email or call or detail. there is the team bio stuff that i needed to do tonight...didn't. oops. there is the planning for my trip to tuscon and the worry that i will be so horribly out of shape that i will spend most of the trip going 14mph getting a tan. and what would make me faster for tuscon? me getting my ride times to my coach so he can make a schedule...didn't. oops. then of course there is the omnipresent pull of the children and a recurrence of a sleepless toddler.

i think i need to ride outside tomorrow. for a long time. very far. and maybe sunday, too. just me and the orca.

catch a glimpse

i see an ear in this pile of clothes....

...and a little more to see here.

big boy bed

hi everybody! i've grown too big for my britches and now it's time that i slept in a real big boy bed! mom and dad have it all figured out.

here it is. it's pretty low to the ground, and has a little side rail thing to keep me from rolling off in the middle of my normal fitful nights sleep. at first, mom had the bed on the side with my friends poo, tigger, and piglet.

tyson came to try the bed out, too. we played and wreaked havoc while mom was situating the room, then i bashed tyson in the head with a toy 'cause i got too excited. i told him i was sorry.

mom finally turned the bed onto the other wall. she said it worked better. whatever. it all looks like a barrel of monkeys to me.

dad even had to try the new bed out. i was getting pretty tired by this point, and just wanted to get all the photo ops taken care of. this big boy bed is HUGE! i could put all my trains in here and still have room.

prayer time! god is good, god is great, now we thank him for this food, amen! now get outta my bed, you've got your own big boy bed!