Good eats...

Tonight I found my new favorite (homemade and healthy) meal. I didn't feel like heating up any pasta sauce, so I decided to cut up a ripe tomato and ripe avocado (I do live in California) and used it to top my whole wheat pasta (my Mom is cringing, but I love whole wheat pasta).

Hmmm....good! And I felt good after eating it and was full. The meal was complete with a chicken breast and a cup of tea.


Breakfast is probably my favorite meal. There's just something about the morning and having a relaxing breakfast. It may be the coffee. I love coffee in general, but have a special affinity for Peets (introduced to me by my Business School stats professor).

I often joke with Cezanne that I just want to go to bed, so I can wake up and it be time for coffee (pay no attention to the fact that I'm saying this at 7 or 8pm sometimes). I guess I just want that coffee, but can't have it until the morning.

Cezanne would agree (and readily point out) that I love a "leisurely" breakfast. She blames that fact on the reason why I get up at 5:40am and leave the house for work at 7:20am. What! Where does the time go?

Shave, Shower, Androgel application, make coffee and breakfast (simple and quick), and then eat breakfast and watch Mike & Mike or the Local News or CNN, then the first 10-15 minutes of the today show and a quick email check.

Anyway, below is my breakfast 80% of the time. It's actually more like 95%. The other 4.5% of the time I make strawberry & banana buckwheat pancakes and the other .5% of the time we have breakfast out.

My 95% breakfast is Kashi Go Lean Cereal with strawberries & bananas and 2% milk, one slice of Milton's whole wheat & whole grain bread (toasted) with Trader Joe's crunchy peanut butter and raspberry preserves, and 2 cups of Peets (Arabian Mocha-Java or Major Dickasons) Coffee.

Between the cereal, the slice of bread, and the peanut butter, that's 18 grams of fiber! I forgot to put in the "where the time goes" section the 2 trips to the bathroom. With that thought, I hope you can still enjoy your breakfast.

A great Chaplain and a rainy couple of days

I went to my first retirement ceremony on Thursday. It couldn't have been for a better person. Chaplain Petruska is a Catholic priest and a Navy Captain. He soon will take off the Navy uniform, but continue being a Catholic priest.

I had the privilege of having an office right across from his for over a year. Chaplain Petruska was also stationed at the Naval Academy while I was a student there. The retirement ceremony was beautiful and the weather held out, although it was a little windy. I'll miss his quick whit and sarcasm when I leave the San Diego area. His Bishop has agreed to let him stay in San Diego instead of returning to his home parish in Pennsylvania.


The weather on Thursday held out for the retirement, but not later on. It forced me to stay inside on the trainer instead of riding outside. You can see the dogs hanging out and the remotes within reach from the bike. I made it through our local news, Access Hollywood, and Wheel of Fortune.


On Friday it rained again and we were able to see this beautiful rainbow right outside our condo.

I made my first Saturday SDBC (San Diego Bicycle Club) ride in about 5 weeks. I got the heart rate up to 183 at one point, but didn't push it too much otherwise. I decided to skip "stud loop" since this was my first weekend back in a while. I put in a good 45 miles and 2 hours 24 minutes of riding time. It rained a little on the ride, but wasn't too bad.

The new frame has arrived and been built

First off, I need to officially say goodbye to the 2005 Madone 5.9SL frame. You've been good to me. You were an odd (expensive) choice for my first road bike. Thanks for the memories.

Hello 2008 Cervelo R3 frame. I was literally scared when I saw online at UPS.com that they had "delivered" the frame. I knew it was either sitting outside my door or was on the patio. Luckily it was on the patio. We've got great UPS delivery guys (quick story below). I left a note saying if no one was home at the time of delivery, but they were in the area after 5:30pm, please stop by again. Well, I guess they decided to just take that note in place of my signature!

One day the UPS driver left a note on the door saying that a delivery was attempted and to sign the note if we agreed to waive the signature. A few minutes later I saw the UPS driver and asked him if I could get my package now. He said that he wasn't the driver that left the note, but he called the driver who did and he agreed to swing back by! Good stuff.


The UPS driver knows that we have 2 dogs, so take a look in the middle of the photo below to look what he left. Good people.


I was so excited to get the new frame that I wore it around for a couple of days... More like 2 minutes so I could snap this photo. JW made Cezanne and I laugh pretty darn hard with this blog post: http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2008/05/chris-this-is-for-you.html


2.02 lbs, my bike rack had no problem holding it. I, however, had trouble doing curls with it.


From about 2 lbs to about 15 and a half. Like magic!


After the first ride. I can't get enough, it's lighter, it accelerates better (stiffer bottom bracket), it's more comfy (vertically compliant), I have more seatpost showing and less spacers. All good stuff.

Another Tour of California post...3 months after the fact

Another May 7th and another year older. 31 big ones...

I finally got the blog about the Prologue of the 2008 Tour of California out a few entries ago, but now I want to dump some images from Stage 1.

We started out the day with a scone and a coffee and a view down Lombard Street, the "curviest" street in the world! Speed limit is 5mph on this section of Lombard.

Cezanne and I worked our way across the Golden Gate Bridge. I kept accidentally referring to it as the "Bay" Bridge and I'm not sure why.



After admiring the view of the Golden Gate and the city of San Francisco, we headed to the start of Stage 1 in Sausalito. We just drove around to get a feel for it, but we stuck with our original plan to go to the only climb of the day, the Category 3 Coleman Valley Road climb. We took 101 then some back roads to get there. The roads were very windy and narrow and full of cyclists biking up the back side of Coleman Valley Road to watch the stage. It was really cool.

We parked off in the grass on the side of the road and then walked to our spot. This is the view of the valley, with the Pacific ocean in the background.

We set up camp about 400 meters below the KOM climb. People had written a bunch of stuff with chalk, including "GEORGE" below.

We had gotten word from some of the race officials that a solo break-away had stuck with about a 10 minute lead on the peleton. Everybody was eager to see the lone figure come around the bend. I think the guy in the blue cape with the big hair in the pic below is "Big Hair Superfan."

And Jacskon Stewart from BMC was the solo break-away. Apparently he made a move partly because he is a Santa Rosa, CA resident and that was the finishing city. The peleton scooped him up before that though. He seemed to be struggling a little bit. Sweet ride and sweet team kit. The BMC team is lucky to be kitted out in Assos clothing since BMC bought Assos. I don't know if BMC is sponsored by Nike, but Jackson is wearing the shoes Lance used to wear. Because I'm such an expert on bicycle fit (read a lot of sarcasm in this one), one thing I would suggest to Mr. Stewart is to bring his saddle down about 2cm.


After Jackson passed we all wondered when the peleton would be swooping around the corner...

The peleton is an interesting phenomenon. It's nice to see on a hill so you get a little more viewing time. It reminds me of a swarm of bees. You can barely see them below, just rounding the corner.


Here is the peleton getting closer. Levi is one of the riders on the front.


A couple of guys jumped towards the top to get some of the rest of the KOM points. Jens Voigt, Mr. Breakaway, went chasing one of the guys who jumped.


I think that is Robert Gesink for Rabobank on the left below. He was the one guy who hung with Levi on Sierra Road. On the right is Chris Horner (with his usual smile) and George Hincapie on the other side of him.


Oscar Freire and Fabian Cancellara. I don't know about those sunglasses Fabian, but you can do whatever you want. He's wearing the yellow leader's jersey since he won the Prologue.

I think that is Karsten Kroon for Team CSC below. He is one of the very few CSC riders who use a Cervelo R3 for all of the races (not just the slightly off road and bumpy ones). To the right of the picture is Tom Boonen.


Despite being a little chilly while we waited to see the riders, we really enjoyed watching the stage. Cezanne was a total trooper. She said she had fun and I believe her! We decided to have dinner back down in Sausalito. We flew out that night from San Francisco. Seeing the prologue and Stage 1 were awesome. I encourage anyone with a slight interest to go take a look. These cyclists are amazing athletes.

Saddle Testing...we have a winner

I'm always impressed by Competitive Cyclist. They consistently provide the most detailed reviews of products and have a great "zoom" feature so you can see the goods up close.

They have a demo program for bikes, wheels and saddles. Each one allows you to put some or all of the cost of the demo towards the purchase of the product.

I decided to order the saddle demo to see if there was something out there that I would prefer to my Cedesius. I don't have any issues with my saddle, it's really light and really comfy, but I was curious.

The saddles (11 of them) came in a hard plastic case, 5 on the top layer (1 missing below because it was on my bike)...


and 6 on the bottom.


Some of the saddles got a full test ride, others just got 5-10 minutes while on my trainer. That was the simpler way to get to the 2-3 that I thought fit me the best.

And the winner was...

The Selle Italia SLR Gel Flow.


It did the best job of keeping the pressure on my sit bones and off of my perineum. It is flatter than the standard, and lighter, SLR, which is why it worked well.

If for some reason I grew tired of my current saddle, the SLR Gel Flow would be the one I would pick, but my Cedesius is still the champ. It doesn't have a cut-out, but it does have a groove.

Now, if I could only decide on a Soloist Carbon or an R3...