Inglewood Jack

This video is a riot, especially if you're a fan of Pulp Fiction.

Where are they now...and can we get them back?

Today's steady stream of mindless, corporate machine made punk/hardrock aimed to reach out to our restless youth is some of the worst crap I've every heard. I can't stand the radio anymore, long live the iPod and MP3 players.

Somewhere around 6th or 7th grade I was introduced to the DC punk scene. I wasn't the black clad, mohawk wearing disgruntled youth typically associated with that scene, but I did have my ripped jeans and black 10 eyelet Doc Martens, well before they became so mainstream fashion, and when wearing the wrong color shoe laces in them could get you your ass kicked.

The rare trips to go hang out at Salamander in Georgetown listening to local bands on vinyl was always something to look forward to. My first DC band exposure was Minor Threat, but that quickly wore off when I heard Bad Brains. Having hit the DC punk scene around 1979, they were already kicking ass and influencing bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag. Unfortuantely I was getting into them as they were on their way out. Unknown to most, BB influenced alot of todays mainstream rock, Metallica, System of A Down and Nirvana to name a few. On my list of influential bands, they're second only to Led Zeppelin.

I never got to see them live, but thanks to YouTube, they can live on. I dug up some old footage of their early concerts. The footage is a good selection of their range as a band, best classified as punk/reggae they excel at both ends of the spectrum.

More Charm City Pics

Took a while to pick through the almost 500 photos, but here a some good shots. Gina got the Mens B while I shot the Mens A race.











The ADG boys sporting the new digs...kinda hot for long sleeves though eh?








hmmmm, not exactly










Sean working the natural barrier










Brian kickin' it in the Men's A race. These boys were smokin' this course.

One Down, Now Let's Roll

Well, as much as I wasn't looking forward to today's first 'cross race of the season, it wasn't that bad. Compared to last season, it's a monumental improvement, considering I didn't finish. There were something like 88 starters, that's huge for a local race. There were only 86 in the 30-34 Masters race at nationals.

I squandered a front row start struggling to get used to the new pedals and hit the dirt about 10-12 deep. That was only topped by the pile up in front of me on the first off-camber grass section. After getting bikes untangled with the guy infront and a huge gap had opened. Overall I rode a solid race trying to just pace my effort and felt surprisingly good after finishing what was close to an hour race. What stung was coming around to start the 3rd lap and seeing the lap counter with 5 to go, the race was estimated only be 5 laps, oh well.

Next stop Gloucester, MA for the Crank Bros. series (hopefully).

Gina snapped alot of good photos...
Coming into the sand pits












Clean remount, the skills were on today, except for one slip taking an inside line too hot.

I felt especially good on the long runs, moving up and passing alot of riders.










Another clean remount coming out of the pits. This is just a cool photo, I like B&W.











The barriers, this was second to last lap. I passed these two shortly after this and never saw them again.

Already?

So, it seemed like it was just the begining of August and there was plenty of time to prepare for 'cross season. Well, that time has passed. Just glad I'm not going to be peaking because this weekend is going to hurt.

Gina thinks she's cool, and now she's boo-hooing b/c I'm writing everything she is saying. Gina thinks she rocks. All of this is questionable and subject to change...., sorta like objects in mirror are closer than they appear...

Luv you pookie bear

Old School

Passing on, found this on the +1 Lap site.
plusonelap.blogspot.com

Fini

Ok, it's official the 'cross bike is finally finished. After picking up an already mounted chain missing the pins from the Bike Doctor the other day, I made my way up to Race Pace to get this thing done. Fortunately Steve was there and helped put the finishing touches on by dialing in the drivetrain. Just need to glue up the front tire and take her for a spin.

Oh, did I mention it weighed in at a scant 16.97lbs?

The Good Old Days

Gina just sent this to me, I got a good laugh out of it. I especially like bullets 10-14, ladies take
note.

Right this way Mr. Ridley

So to top off my day, not only did my 'cross frame finally arrive, but I was surprised by an early morning delivery of some sweet Andre Dugast Rhino tubulars.

mmm, look at that tread.

'cross tires just don't get any better than this.










And now for the good stuff...



So pretty.

Except for the fact that I was expecting the red and white color scheme. Now will I do with my new red and white Fizik saddle?











Steve B. at Race Pace helping install the FSA integrated headset. Steve is an awesome mechanic, he wrenches for the Trek pro team and Chris Eatough. Only he and Nick ever touch my bikes.










And now measuring the steerer tube... cutting carbon, now that's kinda scary, Steve will have the honor.























And now to complete the build... I need a bit of warming up before getting started.

It's Here!

So as I'm driving into the office I get a call from the bike shop, my Ridley is here! Finally. Should receive it tomorrow, sounds like a good enough reason to work from home as any.

Looks like I need a fresh 6 of Hoegaarden as I'm down to just one in the fridge and that won't be enough for a complete bike build. Good Belgian bikes require good Belgian beer to go with it.

Toys

So the past week or so has come and gone without a post. Not that we haven't done anything. Gina and I went out to Cleveland weekend before last for our brother-in-law Brian's surprise 50th birthday party. It was a good time, except for the 50 degree weather thanks to a hurricane rolling up the east coast to spoil an outside party. But the rain came and went and came and went several more times but in the end it was a good time. I realized as you get older all you have to look forward to are gag gifts, the best I thought was the 50 beer bottles wrapped in diapers from his brother-in-law Scott (there's a deeper story behind the diapers), we got him a membership to AARP. Not sure if we have any pics to post.


The birthday boy. He was actually surprised.

"I usually sniff this kind of stuff out, you know."












All last week I was on pins and needles, I felt like a kid waiting for Christmas. My new 'cross bike has yet to arrive, supposedly it was at the distributor in Nevada the week before but has yet to make that arduouis cross-country journey to Lancaster, PA to the shop where I ordered it. It's now less that two weeks until the first 'cross race and I have no bike! Plenty of parts to build it up though.

On the upside I did score my PowerTap last week. It came Friday night around 7:30 and it was on the bike within an hour. Gina went to the beach for the weekend so I was looking forward to riding with it Saturday with Bryan, the unofficial Power guru of Ellicott City. After our 3 1/2 ride all I realized was what a sadistic toy it is. Just one more way to watch your body suffer. Another 2 1/2 hours on Sunday confirmed it.

Gina got back Sunday just as I rolled in from the ride and we went into B-more to top off the weekend by watching the Yankees woop up on the Orioles. Always fun stuff.

Time Well Wasted

I've always had this affinity for tennis, I've never played formally yet I respect the game and those who play it. It's something about the overwhelming physical and mental aspect of the game that excites me. Over the years I've always enjoyed watching Andre Agassi play, he's always had such respect for the game, even in his early years where he could have gone the way of John MacEnroe. The best were the years watching the epic duels with Sampras, which unfortunately Sampras got the best of.

Last night I decided to stay up and watch what could have possibly been Andre Agassi's last match ever. He was up against the 8 seed, Marcos Baghdatis, and his experience was showing over the youth of his opponent, winning the first two sets by capitalizing on the endless string of unforced errors by Baghdatis. After dropping the third Andre bounced back and rallied to a 4-0 lead in the forth set. When most athletes would have packed it in, atleast mentally at that point, Baghdatis rose up and fought back to 4-4, eventually winning the set 7-5, incredible. To already be down 2 sets in a best of 5 and losing 4-0 where do you find that drive? That's what makes a professional athlete I believe, beyond all of the physical talent. That's where punks like Terrell Owens really piss me off, they don't deserve to be where they're at, they're not professionals.

So, back to my being attached to the couch for over 3 hours at this point. The match of course goes to a fifth set and fittingly after watching both players struggle both pyhisically and mentally thought the set, a tie break. At this point Andre can't get a first serve out of the bottom of the net and Baghdatis is cramping in both legs and can barely walk let alone chase down Andre's ground shots.

In a somewhat anti-climactic end to the match 4 hours after the start, Agassi won. Baghdatis couldn't overcome his cramping and became more or less a lame duck with only his serve to keep him alive, which unfotunately left him so abruptly at the start of the tie break where he double faulted two services in a row.

4 hours, time well wasted to watch two professionals perform at their best and giving it their all.

Sweet Serenity

What an hour hike through the park will get you, for about a day...

It's Rather Simple Really...

The day your catabolic activity exceeds your anabolic activity is the day you start to die.

Pretty grim outlook, especially when you deal with the fine balance of tearing yourself apart only to try and rebuild it again with the hopes of being stronger. This season has been a harsh lesson in the results of either A) overtraining or B) not having a sufficient base to fall back on after periods of intense load.

Yesterday was the MABRA Age-graded criterium championships. I was looking forward to a strong performance (along with the other 30 or 35 guys who got pulled or popped from the race). It was total carnage. I've never been in a race that went that hard from the gun and never let up. Out of a field of maybe 45-50 riders, I think 12 finished.

Paul lit it up starting a 3 man break after the first turn. I think I was still getting clipped in to my pedals.

After Dan took the first watch up front, I was feeling strong and helped cover some early counter attacks.

After 3 laps or so the field was already widdled down significantly. Of course, who am I pulling up the hill?

Frick, Ramon and Super Dave. All three would eventually bridge to the break.







Gina got one in focus!












Sitting in to try and recover a bit wasn't a big help as gaps continued to open up all along the course, uphill, downhill, flat it didn't matter, there was much pain and suffering all over this course.









Mr. Prickett not really enjoying his first race back after a long break.











Paul still mixing it up as the break grew to 8 riders and stayed that way until a few laps to go when 3 broke away and caught the chase group.
Ramon still killin' it after winning the 40+ earlier in the day.

Time Machine

So I've had an iPod since Christmas now and the thing holds like 10,000 songs, I think I have a couple hundred at most on there and struggle to think what I should add.

I go to iTunes every now and then to see if there's anything interesting. All I end up doing is finding stuff I haven't listened to or heard on the radio in decades. Sucks to say that at 31! But it does take me back. It's funny how music can invoke memories like it was yesterday.

I just wasted a good two hours on iTunes and I didn't buy a thing. The best song I came across that I considered buying was Godzilla by the BOC. But hey, where else can you buy a compilation album with Here Comes the Hotstepper (Ini Kamoze), Informer (Snow, remember, the white rapper/raggae guy?), Mr. Loverman (Shaba Ranks) and Sweat (Inner Circle). Don't even get me started on the 80's Hair Band compilation which seemed to overlap with the 80's Heavy Metal. Who would have thought Slaughter was a cross-over band?

I think I started out looking for Ska but like any good media parasite they only have the usual pop-culture friendly crap, whatever sells. Then it ticks me off when they lump bands into generas that aren't even close. Beside the hair-dos, were The Cure really punk? Enough to sit beside the likes of the Dead Kennedy's and the Ramones? Don't think so.

Hey Apple, try not having some 18 year old intern put together playlists of bands that broke up, go back together then broke up again before they were even born.

But hey, where else can I listen to a 30 second clip of Ohio Players' Love Rollercoaster?

Tour de Pain

I'm cooked, physically, not mentally though as I still have the desire to race this late in the season. But I added this weekend's Tour de Christiana stage race to my schedule to make up for not going to Fitchburg. As far as stage races go it's not too bad, unless you're just not feeling it, then it's a pain-fest. This was my third year going to this race and my first to finish all three stages. The promoter must have gotten tired of poor turnout for the TT b/c this year you had to finish each stage to do the next unlike previous years.

I thought my fitness going into this race was going to be good, I had high expectations, then we hit the hill on the first lap of the road race. I knew then it was all over. There's no worse feeling as a cyclist than that moment when you need to lay down the watts and the engine room just doesn't respond, especially in a race. I was smart and had stayed towards the front so I never lost too much ground the first couple of laps. But then we caught the women's race and the field splintered a bit and I just could respond to the accelerations on the last few meters of the climb. This horrible feeling followed me into the next day for the TT and then the crit. I think my TT was slower than last year, by alot.














Take note of the kid on the right in the red. He's 16 and kicks serious ass. He's won 19 races this season and won both the road race and the crit this weekend. He soloed the crit for the last 4 laps. One guy managed to bridg up to him but he dropped him on the uphill finish.

Something about an 8:06 start time for a TT coupled with feeling like pooh, I wasn't very motivated. Did the fact that forgot my TT clip on bars say anything to looking forward to this? Atleast I don't show up all decked out on an expensive TT bike with the aero helmet.













The crit is fast, technical and hard. Relentless really, no rest. You're either hammering uphill or hammering downhill or out of the turns.
Gina snapped some good photos of us coming out of the tunnel under the railroad tracks.











Suffering to get back in after a wheel change. Nothing like starting from a dead stop at the bottom of a hill to catch onto a 23mph race.










Next stop, Williamsport, MD for the MABRA age graded Criterium championships.

Picture Time

Well, after about 4 months I finally got around to posting the entire season's (to date) worth of photos to an FTP server. Gina has done a great job this season of snapping cool photos of the Water Boys in action around the Mid-Atlantic.

Here's the link, but email me first for the username/password so I don't have to worry about who's accessing them. They're all downloadable. Best bet is to use Internet Exploder, I mean Explorer since it acts pretty much like your windows browser when connecting to FTP sites, the only thing you can't do is view thumbnails, so if you want to find yourself you'll have to look an 'em all. You can copy and paste files or directories.

ftp://72.81.243.144/

There's close to 1200 photos broken out by race then Category, mostly Cat 4 and Masters 30+.
Look for more soon from this weekend's Tour de Christiana followed by the MABRA age graded Criterium champs the following weekend.

Enjoy!

No Mas

So my brother got married this weekend. It was rather interesting event to say the least. It took place in southern Virginia near where he went to college and is now working as an elementary school teacher. It's also where he met his now wife Katie, who also works at the school. They met in February and he decided she was the one.

The wedding was very low key, not alot of frivilous nonsense, just a get down to it approach. I was one of his best men and Gina was the unofficial photographer.



I think the entire ceremony lasted 20 minutes even though the pastors watch said about 40 minutes.

It's official! Another one bites the dust.














We had to send them off properly...














They're off to the beach for their honeymoon. Best of luck and congratulations, Zane and Katie.

Say What? Too Hot?

It's been a while, several years actually I think, but for the second day in a row it's been at or above 100 degrees out with nasty humidity. After last season I swore I was going to acclimate to this type of weather and not have to drop out of races b/c of it. So far I think I've done a good job, especialy after Granview Heights where I lost my only water bottle on lap 2 of 22. So to really test the weather I went ahead a did the D-ville ride last night. Apparently the weather scared alot of folks away, probably for good reason as there was a smaller than usual group of about 15 or so.

Last night was definitely not a typical Tuesday ride, the pace was more moderate (not sure of exact speed since I finally removed the useless Cateye computer from my bike) but there were times we were pushing it. So my point is, to what degree does training in such oppressive conditions benefit? Do my muscles adapt to less oxygen to be able to perform the same amount of work? And if so, how often and what length efforts? I kept my efforts on the front short, 10-15 seconds max but felt that was all I had to give before I went anaerobic, I felt like I was sucking air through a wet rag most of the time.

Tonight is suppose to be 'cross practice, but I keep hearing that's it's too hot. Really? Weather says with humidity it only feels like 107.

On the upside the yard is nice and brown, relieving me of my weekly obligation to waste an hour and a half of my life mowing. Although my basil and peppers don't seem to be enjoying it too much. They require more water than me to not wilt.














On another note, have I ever revealed the greatest endurance food ever created? There's nothing better on those long 5+ hour rides than the one and only...

The original!

Tuberol

So Boulder had to have surgery yesterday. I take him in for what we all thought was a problem with his right TMJ. He had been having problems opening his mouth and seemed even less interested in food lately. Turns out the boy had a mouth full of impacted teeth, dead teeth and stuff the doctor couldn't even explain. All most likely from his joy of chewing and tug-o-war.

When we picked him up he was still half out of it from the anaesthesia and walking sideways. He pased out in the car with his head in the air, where's camera when you need it?

When we got him home he had to get up the first flight of stairs, before I could even attempt to help him he tried to barrel up them as usual. By the third step his heavy legs got behind him and he took a header. After that he appreciated the help.

For the rest of the night he prety much looked like this.

They sent us home with the pain killer tuberol which he had a good dose of post surgery, hopefully it works just as well. He did pass righ out after taking one with dinner. We need some peace and quiet for a couple of days.

Who needs kids? The upside is you can insure them.