Off to Africa...

No, I'm not going to visit my brother in Djibouti, but the stuff in the picture will soon be on it's way to Africa. I think to Cameroon.

One of the guys on the team (National Capital Velo Club/NCVC) sent out an email earlier this week that he was back for a week from his work in Africa and wanted to bring some bike parts back to help the less fortunate.

I recently made a half-hearted (more like a quarter-hearted) attempt to sell my white FSA handlebars. They're just too narrow even though they're 42cm. They actually measure 40cm (center to center) around the hoods and 42cm (c-c) at the end of the drops. It just seemed like there was no room for your hands.

So I sent an email to our team email listing posting them for sale...not a single hit.

A few days later I got the email about bike parts for Africa and thought it was the perfect match. I also threw in some cycling clothes that I hadn't worn for >2 years or so. Good feeling.

Today was the first time I've done the Saturday 7am "hammerfest." It's know as the toughest local ride. It wound up only being about 35 miles, but it was tough. My bud Brian from the team suggested it and said that it would be intense.

We started easily enough, just kind of strolling along and at about 15 minutes into the ride the pace skyrocketed and the drop occured. It was a really good workout and the goal is to hang a little longer each week. The group split and I was in the second half, but still getting a really good workout, which is the idea. My left cleat started coming loose and when I finally stopped to see what was going on I was down a screw. I tightened the remaining 3 and it was fine for the rest of the ride.

Being my first time on this ride I wasn't really sure of the route. There were a lot of turns and zig-zags, but it's a fun route that you can really only do as a group given that you're on major roads for some portions.

Some guy almost took me out because he swerved to avoid a rough patch in the road, that in my opinion wasn't worth swerving for. I hate that.

The Garmin ride info is here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2287074

The first "practice" race of the season

Luckily, this didn't happen during the race.  That's a nail in my tire if you can't see it.  This happened a little over a month ago on the day I decided to go for a ride when it was 19 degrees, feels like 10 degrees.  First flat from a nail.

This past Sunday I participated in the "C" race at the Trade Zone pre-season training races in Upper Marlboro, MD.  The C race is a CAT 4/5 combo.  The weather was 40 degrees and light rain.  The rain actually let up during our race, which was nice.  

The only sketchy thing in the race was one corner that apparently had oil on it and then the race volunteers covered it with sand.  My tire slipped bad on one lap, but was fine the rest of the time.  Unfortunately there was one accident there, but I don't think anything serious.

I finished towards the back of the main group as it crossed the line, but felt good about it.  I took a flyer on one of the laps in the middle.  It was fun.  I stayed away for just a little bit less than a lap.  My own teammate bridged up to me and brought everyone else.  I was toast regardless, so maybe he just sped it up by about 10 seconds.

Kyle Jones' (JW's friend) wife took some great photos of the race and got a good one of me on my breakaway near the start/finish: http://amyjones.zenfolio.com/p934464377/eda60b4

I told Cezanne and my Mom that I look a little "stocky" in the photo and I think they wanted to smack me.  That's just the way I look to me.  Today I checked my weight, down about 2 pounds to 164 (I'm 5'11").  That's pretty good as far as I'm concerned.  I'm typically somewhere between 160-170.  I wouldn't mind getting down to 160 and staying there.

Cezanne said that I've been spending too much time looking at professional cyclists on the Versus coverage and she didn't want me to get as skinny as Dave Zabriskie (or grow a mustache like he used to have): http://www.velonews.com/photo/73486

Below is the link to the race data from Garmin 705.  Next time I need to set it up to automatically create a lap each time I pass the start/finish.  That's a pretty cool feature.  I pressed the "lap" button a few minutes into my cooldown after the race, but that shouldn't have skewed the data lower much at all.  

I did take JW's advice (from last year) and I didn't look down to see what my heart rate was.  I just went with the flow and it worked.  I averaged about 170 bpm for 52 minutes (you can see that if you click the "lap" tab).  I'm not sure what that means though.  I guess if I wanted to do an hour time trial I could aim to keep my heart rate at 170?

Here's the link: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/2224177

I signed up for this same race on March 8th and 15th, so I'm looking forward to getting back out there as well as comparing the data.

DZ and JW are the man! the men?

Either way, they are awesome.

JW recently posted a pic of Dave Zabriskie's (DZ) new t-shirt, his "Captain America" t-shirt. DZ has a thing for comic book heroes and some action hero figurines (he has a beautiful wife and they just had a baby boy, in case you were wondering). Captain America is one of them. It's a natural fit then that his domination and being "Captain" of the U.S. National Time Trial championships the past 3 years earns him the right to wear the unique star and stripes associated with Captain America on his time trial suit.

JW's post is here: http://jwbender.blogspot.com/2009/02/new-dave-z-t-shirt.html

This post (really just the picture) is my response.

Just today I commented on JW's post that I was jealous he had that shirt. I'm jealous because I'm a big DZ fan. JW replied back to me in an email: "You jealous of my DZ shirt? Just get your own!"

I had one thing on my mind as I left work today...get home and watch the decisive stage in the Tour of California, the 15-mile time trial in Solvang. So I was eager to switch from text updates from cyclingnews.com (couldn't get the Amgen website video working at work) to the video coverage on Versus.

When I got home, there was an unexpected package waiting for me from JW. It looked to be in the shape of a DVD. I immediately thought it was a cycling video, but not really sure what or why...

Well, it wasn't a DVD, it was a DZ! I was jealous no longer. JW told me to just get my own and less than a few hours later I had my own, courtesy of JW, all the way from California! Awesome. Thanks so much man, I'm diggin' it.

So today, as the picture indicates, I was able to watch DZ as I wore DZ. Notice the Captain America star on his TT suit.

The Trainer Set-up

I've been relying on the cyclingnews.com and velonews.com "live coverage" of the Tour of California.  These are text updates of the action which occur every 1-4 minutes depending on what's going on.  These are good options for updates while you're at work.

Versus has the TV coverage and it's not been that great.  The first 2 stages had really bad video, either not at all, tons of static, or relatively decent.  This isn't Versus fault, just a product of the weather and the difficulty in covering an event where you can't rely on fixed video cameras.  Besides that, Versus cut off their coverage of the TofCA about 10 minutes before the finish of the stage where Thor Hushovd won.  They went to Hockey instead...nice.

Yesterday I decided to check out the "Tour Tracker" on amgentourofcalifornia.com to see what kind of text coverage they provide.  Much to my surprise, they provide video coverage of the ENTIRE stage.  That might be boring for non-cyclists, but it wasn't for me.   They even had picture in picture.

Yesterday I did about an hour on the trainer and was able to watch the TofCA while I rode.  It was nice.

Below is a screen shot of the coverage with the picture in picture.  Very nice.  Same video that Versus and everyone else uses.

TofCA anticipation...Cycling articles need editing...

Cezanne and I had such a great time last year at the Tour of California.  It was a nice mixture of cycling and doing vacation stuff together.  I wish we could have kept our travel plans out to the tour this year, but we have more important stuff going on...  

Dave Zabriskie is pictured above warming up for the prologue.  The prologue is a little short for him to really shine, but maybe Farrar or Hushovd can pull it through this year.  Unfortunately it's supposed to be rainy this year....for the whole tour!

Christian Van de Velde above.

I was reading some cycling articles yesterday and was kind of surprised that the reporters were getting some stuff wrong.  One velonews article (which actually since has been corrected) was running through the list of folks who could do well in the prologue and was hyping up the race (big names list) and they listing Bradley Wiggins...who is not racing the TofCA.  Right after they had a link to the rosters, saying "just check out the rosters!"  Of course Wiggo (Bradley Wiggins) wasn't on the TofCA roster.  No worries, I nitpick :)

The other was in a cyclingnews article about how Jonathan Vaughters was disappointed in the recent Team Time Trial (TTT) done by his Garmin boys at the Tour Mediterraneen.  They went on to state that Garmin's next TTT test will come at the opening stage of the Giro de Italia and their "second appointment will be the Tour de France opening stage - a technical 15km route in Monaco."  That's an Individual Time Trial, not a Team Time Trial.  No worries, I nitpick, again :)

Above is Cezanne and I with Thomas Voeckler (I think that's how you spell his first name).  Cezanne knows a little French, so she loves to say, "oh, I love Toma!" anytime I mention a race report with him in it.

Anyway, can't wait for the TofCA to start, should be great with a lot of heavy hitters vying for the podium.  I'm hoping Floyd Landis can surprise although I already picked my podium with Wick...Leipheimer, Zabriskie, Cancellera is what I think I put down.  I think Tuft, Van de Velde, Landis, Armstrong, Basso, Michael Rogers and some others I'm forgetting have a legit shot.

Palomar...from sunshine to snow

Toon and I rode Palomar mountain last September before I left San Diego. My only regret is that I didn't get to ride it more often.

I did a blog post about it: http://cgbrianas.blogspot.com/2008/09/palomar-ride-with-toon.html

The above pic is of Toon reaching the top last September.

The below pic is Tom Danielson's (from twitter) view reaching the top a few days ago.

Could be a wet and cold and long Tour of California if this keeps up. I can't wait for the race, it's going to be awesome. A lot of riders are coming in on form.

Eat until you feel disgusting/1st latte

It's been so long since I posted a pic of food.  Actually, it's probably been only a few days.

Do you ever eat and then feel disgusting afterwards?  It's not a disgusting feeling because you feel bad about yourself, it's a disgusting because you ate so much and you ate stuff you usually don't.  

I had that feeling today and the above pic was the culprit...sausage and roasted peppers over pasta.  That pic was taken at my desk at work.  It might be hard to tell, but that's a lot of food and I ate ALL of it, except for 3 pieces of pasta.  

I didn't have my normal afternoon snack and I was burping sausage and peppers all through my interval workout on the indoor trainer, good stuff.

Cezanne and I are creatures of habit when it comes to our meals, but I changed it up with todays lunch and last night's dinner because I happen to be at Dean & Deluca yesterday.  Cezanne's Dad got me a very early Birthday present, a beginner's espresso maker.  It's perfect, because I don't really know what I'm doing, so I can experiment.

I was picking up some espresso beans and getting them ground when I had the bright idea of picking up some food for dinner.  I got the sausage and peppers for myself and chicken salad for Cezanne.  The sausage and peppers lasted for 2 meals with me providing the pasta and some extra pasta sauce.

Even after my trainer ride tonight I wasn't that hungry for dinner.   

The above pic is of the first latte I ever made!  Hopefully they'll get better and better.

The Oakley Jawbone

Velonews just posted an article on the subject of my last post.  They didn't go so far to say that they weren't fans though.  They said the "Jawbone" will be debuted at Stage 6 of the Tour of California (the Solvang TT).  These don't really seem like TT sunglasses to me.

The article: http://www.velonews.com/article/87432/the-scoop-on-the-new-shades-being-sported-by-armstrong-and

Looks like "anonymous," who commented on my last post, was right!

The new Oakleys...not a fan.

As this blog post might suggest, I'm not a huge fan of the new Oakleys being sported around. I first saw them at last year's Tour de France on Thor Hushovd and George Hincapie. I'm not even sure what model they are and I couldn't find them on Oakley's website.

Sorry, no pictures in this post, just links to the pics.

Lance recently started wearing them instead of his Oakley Radars (I have a pair of Radars and love them):
http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2009/feb09/california09/index.php?id=/photos/2009/features/astana-pretoc-feb09/Armstrong_SantaRosa

You can see a couple of pictures of Thor wearing them through these links: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour082/DV356611

http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour082/bettiniphoto_0028586_1_full

Here's big George Hincapie in them (not sure before/after which race): http://www.velonews.com/photo/79686

While I'm on a roll, I don't really like these sunglasses either: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour0818/DV363483

However, I am a fan of the Oakley Radars and Giro Havics. They just look better.

Radar: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour085/DV358342

Havic: http://www.cyclingnews.com/photos/2008/tour08/index.php?id=/photos/2008/tour08/tour0816/bettiniphoto_0029406_1_full

Next blog post should have some ride data or some pics of "what I normally eat in a day." My fans (all 2 or 3 of them) have been clamoring (this is a blatant lie) for more pictures of my food. I don't want to disappoint.