May is the books

Alrighty -
Roll call to all you bloggers out there...
May for the fat kid...
50hrs
1247km
22902kj
lots 4.5 more lbs

I will be throwing my hat back into the racing scene this sunday.. it has a climb, but im going to flog myself. Sunday the 10th is back to the good ole downtown wheaton crit - flat and it has cobbles - ROCK OUT

Tony Montana was here

I could not just ride past this on my way home. Its a mid 90's Cutlass Supreme all done up in Scarface motif. If you cant read it clearly.. the tail reads - Money Power Respect. The interior is all don up in Scarface motif. Its fantastic. I didn't know Cancellara was in town and i would have never guessed he rolls an Oldsmobile.

updates....

i have been a slacker when it comes to snapping recent pics or really having anything good to say here. got a few commute rides in, milder temps have been god and makes for a lighter bag to carry. last weeks chickenride went well and i need to make a post to the chicken page. it was spunky and had some good hard sections i was happy to be involved in.

memorial day weekend was spent around the house, instead of the usual cobbled climb, ride through the park and monday cage match i usually fill that weekend with. the crew did get out and i hooked up with them for a monday doosey out to fermi lab and back. we had a tailwind out, but we went much faster on the way home. there was some serious tempo section and a small break to wait for a few - that pause filled with a small gear drive thru criterium with ritzler, tawse, and i. ritzler gets credit for willing to push his team bike farther than the rest of us on slippery pavement. the roll in has several tough sections and some particular spice when we had a section of attacks and counter attacks to crack some legs. i finally got caught out, but rolled back in in time to punch early and launch RR for the western springs sprint. a great ride guys, thanx.



finally a get well soon to Barker who broke his collarbone and his rig down at the ed soto stage race.



big props to my prodigy chase for learning all about stage racing these last few weeks, and for taking it to the race by attacking 5 miles into the last race to go solo for 20 miles. he is really starting to learn about being a bike racer and learning how to feel out a race. he is definitely on his way to better form and hopefully some podiums at stupid week.



fat kid out

Pull up Pull up Pull up

It has appeared i have stalled - you know - the point in the week, month, year, etc, where you can't seem to get on your bike no matter what you do?
The point in the year where you Juuuuust start to feel some fitness coming then WHAM - no riding. Well, to be honest, mine is not all that bad. At the end of the day last week i had just completed an eight and a half hour ride covering 160miles, and i felt pretty good all things considered. Since then i have managed zilch, zippo, nunca nadda. I guess i can chalk it up to a recovery week. Now i know Enmark is trying every Sally sport from softball to shuffleboard since he can't ride since he dropped and broke his liars box. I think my real problem stems from the fact that I'm starting to think like a racer again, planning training rides and planning on what races i want to go to. I have to keep in perspective that this year is about weight loss and fitness - next year my eye is on the prize.
But but but..
i wanna race, i think i can hang, i think i have the blah blah blah...
stay on course - keep pedaling, keep loosing pounds.

fat kid out

The Bone Ride

Richie says - GO TO THE CHICKENRIDE PAGE!!



For the long winded version of the day, follow the link to the Chickenride page, as this was the substitute to the usual wednesday Chicken activities.

Short version -
all finished, never a doubt, and i still got my hug from Ed

lunch stop

all arrived in madison pretty cheerfully and enjoyed a foot long, and a sandwich from subway too. from there, we raided the van, the car, and our pants.. oh wait we relubed with chamois cream in tha pic! full report to follow.

bone ride

the gear ready to go....

where is king?

the missing man from saturday's ride

saturday special

so it was a small group for the saturday ride.. like just Alex, Ron, and me. the king was supposed to be there, but the attached pics show ron... but an empty space where the king would be. we met him post ride at starbucks where he announced he was tapering for wednesday. good ride, we forged a new route through wheaton. kinda windy, but Alex took up the heavy lifting.



out

Cooler near the Lake??

So i rolled into work friday looking to enjoy what could have been a really nice day to ride. It was about 62 degrees when i left and by the time i was half way there - the knee warmers and arm warmers were almost too much as the temps were rising. No when i got into the loop, the usual lake effect cooling came into play, but it was still beautiful downtown. Lunch time was partly cloudy, but still had all the optimism of a beautiful ride home. I checked the temp at 5:30pm, and it said 52.. now that cant be right i thought, so i went outside to confirm. The weather channel was wrong, the clock / thermometer thing outside our building showed 48 degrees!!!
I stretched my knee warmers down to leg warmers and pulled out the rain cape luckily, but i had to run down to niketown to pay for overpriced running gloves. I froze my arse off on the ride home, that's for sure. I guess the spring time cooler by the lake was in full effect friday.

General Rif Raff

Other than general boring updates - i don;t have much to say today
i have been able to commute tuesday, thursday and hopefully friday as well.
I am psyched up for the Bone ride and i have my goals set in my head.
I am finally starting to feel some small scraps of fitness coming on, and i feel confident about the 16 hours i have in for the month already. The weight is now solidly in the 180's, boy am i glad to be out of the 190's. I now realize that 15 more pounds lost will get me down to the weight i was at when i was competitive at Superweek. not too shabby. Other than more general ranting about blah blah blah - i will post again after the saturday ride - which will probably be my last good ride before the Epic Bone next week. Last chance invite for anyone that wants to join us on a 9 hour ride next week.

Out

heavy lifting with no payoff

so the crew got together down in joliet for the sudden centuary. i could have been a really good ride to prep for the bone ride. it was crazy windy even at 730 in the morning. we were 10 strong and rolled out. we did get to take a lap on the chicagoland speedway, and i took a few pics. other than that i was too scared to take my hands off the bars to grab a cliff bar, let alone snap pics. lots of heavy lifting was necessary with tough head and crosswinds. long story short.. we opten not to do the extra lap for the full 100, we opted for 75 miles instead. we finally got the tailwind, which was sweet, but the last 10 miles was on a bike path, so the payoff was pretty weak. we all agreed that that was not the most fun we could have had. i think everyone will feel the effects today as all were taking their turns at the front.

Rich goes red....

the wonderful folks at SRAM hooked me up with a swanky set of red hoods for the 'Dale. very la-ti-da. and yes.. if you look closely at the weekend pics.. that is Ritzler with pink hoods.. coming soon to a Giro near you!

April Summary

well i was quite surprised when i was able to look at what all i did in April - i managed to log 38 hours on the bike, and actually get several weekends of REALLY good miles in. Maybe, just maybe, i can have a return to general fitness this year. T minus 15 days until the Bone - i have a century on the horizon this weekend, but that will be my last chance for big miles due to family commitments next weekend. All i can say is that i hope for a nice day and a thick sack to get me as far as i can go this year.

Cheers