Tee Time

Over a dozen years of racing on the WVMBA circuit have helped me develop strong legs, lasting friendships, and as I realized this morning, one gigantic collection of T-shirts.




I have nearly 100 Tshirts here with well over half from bicycle related activities. And that's not counting the ones that went straight to the rag pile, which is where about a third of these are going.

Thank you, race promoters, for your unwaveringly ugly shirts, your inability to pass up "exciting" colors, and your confidence in your nephew's Tshirt design talent. You have kept me stylish and given me a rag to clean my chain all at once.

I have a job.

When you go to the bike shop in July, please don't greet your friendly neighborhood mechanic with, "did you see Contador drop Cloden?" or,"Andy Schlecks just couldn't drop the yellow jersey."

We have to work during the day. We don't have live updates on our phones. We aren't reading about it online. We certainly don't have versus on at the shop.

But we are huge fans of the sport that we love and though we don't have versus at home (we can't afford such luxuries), we do have friends with cable at whose houses we will watch the day's stage after the after work ride.

So come in. Talk about your ride. Talk about yesterday's stage. But please don't tell me about what happened today in the tour.

I have an iPhone

So now I can mobile blog or some such nonsense. Just crazy.


Yippee.

Sunday Ride

Had a great ride today. Didn't quite make 50 miles, though I did break 50 mph coming down summer school road. Did doug hill to the railtrail to reedsville to the kingwood pike to summerschool to the railtrail and then around town. All by myself which must mean that I'm going ok because I have to feel good to do something like that without external motivation. The mp3 in one ear for the rail trail sections certainly didn't hurt though. I'm getting into the meat of my season (which runs July through September pretty much. I don't like training when it is cold outside) and I'm excited to be racing and have it feel good.

A highlight was just as I crossed into Mon county on the bike, I saw writing on the road, which it being tour season I hoped said something like "go Robbie!" or maybe "go lance" but instead it said "I bang the slut".... In spray paint on the road. I guess they didn't feel they were getting enough credit for their great accomplishment. well, good for them.

Didn't do the race at Valley Falls today as I didn't get back to town until 3:00 this afternoon. I was in Cleveland attending my sister's wedding (congrats Summer!). Though I would look for just about any reason to avoid the Valley Falls race. It is evil and not much fun. The sport course had 4000 feet of climbing in 12.2 miles. That's just rediculous. Plus as I'm racing singlespeed class, incredibly painful. The climbs are steep. The trails are ok, but not great, and the descents are steep, fast, and dangerous without giving time to recover or being even relatively fun. On the other hand, I'm kind of a wimp and I'm sure the people who went had a great time.

More updates soon. A lot has gone on, but I'm going to reup it here.

See you on the trails.