Lemond

All over the interwebs people are calling Lemond a whiner and bitter. I am sickened by this. The press and the bloggers all say he is jealous, crazy and ignorant and longing for the lime light.

I do not know any facts about any of that, but I doubt all of it and it is irrelevant. I do know that he has valid points and concerns about the sport and the clip below is not bitter, finger pointing or crazy. It is right on point.




The funny thing about Lance and his new Doctor is when you think about Lances old Doctor,

well here is fictional story;

5 years ago, I was rich, no one knew how I got so rich all of a sudden. I told them after I was living in the poor house, I worked hard and made money. Lots of my friends were associated with this gangster, Lets call him Mike Lamborghini. They all claimed he was a legitimate business man, so I got involved with him. I got richer after associating with him. He was just giving me investment tips. Mike and all my friends got convicted of crimes, but I got richer. You can't say I'm guilty just because I hung out with and took advice from guilty people. That just isn't fair. I then took some time off to date barley legal, almost anorexic starlets, but I was missing all the hard work of getting rich. So I un-retired. I want ot be transparent. So I have hired a regulator to be sure I break no rules. Thats right. I am paying somebody to make sure I am legit. Yes. I write a check and employ this person to say I am all legal and shit. I mean if I associate with people that are good, it makes me good right, thats fair, right?

Cross Crit Cross

Friday I bailed from work early to head up to  Ogden to hit the second pre-season Cross race. 

MK was already there, so we hit a few laps together, seeing a few 11 year olds on their dads old MTB's made him decide to race A's.

Justin Wilson got the W in the B's in his first ever CX race, puttin the wood to a, um 14 year old, although that 14 year old would of been 4 pro at the Evanston Icup final.

I got a good warm up in on the trainer watching the B race. Then hit a few hot laps. Prior to that I embroacted with some Mad Alchemy all natural medium blend. There was around 11 of us at the start.

BZ, MK, Me, Daren, Mitch. BG, Robby, Cavey, Chrispy, Brandon and a contender rider.

As Jon G mentioned, the start was NOT safe. abut 20 yards with a hard left, followed by a hard right into a parking garage, a 180 out of the garage followed by 2 short hard lefts into the barriers. I didn't even attempt to get a good start, then at the barriers, Robby went down. he got around me a bit later and at this point I was in 10th.  The course was fun and short, around 6/10ths of a mile.  I got 22 laps in. Bart and Chris got 24.

Mike had about the same gap on me for 2/3rds of the race. probably 10 -15 seconds, on about lap 5 i went through some course tape and had a delay. 2/3rds of the way through I started to pull him back. With 3 laps to go we were together, I tried some feeble attacks but we stayed together. He got in front of me on the last 4 corners, which was the race, he got me by a wheel. Towards the end of the race it was getting really dark on certain course sections, but by then we knew them well enough. My average lap time was 2:39, with none of the laps diverging more than 5 seconds. My fastest lap was the last one. actually 3 of my fastest laps were at the end of the race. It was good to have that effort and ability to keep steady and accelerate when needed.

My HR climbed steadily, which is a good sign as well.

After the race my legs started to get REALLY hot. REALLY hot, that embrocation worked.  Mrs. Caveman, Cavey and I went to Dinner and ended up eating with the Peterson clan and my legs finally cooled down in time for the salad.  We had a nice dinner then I headed home.

I took a shower and my legs heated up again and it took an hour to cool down. Good stuff, maybe I'll wait for it to be below 40 before I use it again.

Saturday, I pretty much did nothin.

Somebody has to go back and get a shitload of dimes.

So, took  a nice brain emptying ride on the Shoreline this evening, from house to zoo to dry creek and through the U. home, 1:15 of work related crap removal.  

 Saw Fearick up there, running, thats just cheating, running, I mean, its not like running helps, wait, maybe it does.

I ran enough in the 80's, base training.

Caveman throwing it out there

Nice.

My rant was generic, his was specific.

Hey sandbaggers,  if you need a blue ribbon or need the 50 bucks, I can probably get enough of the other riders to take up a collection.

And remember to review this post.

Yippppeeeee

Thursday night was the first Doctor Cross Clinic at the park, 30 minutes of barriers, flubbing the re-mount with my normal stutter step. then a few laps around the park. Friday I was already sore from the run-up and barriers, hips, knees, shins and feet. Friday I did some 20 second efforts up emi and almost keeled over.

Saturday as the Canyons CX race. I was looking for a good CX workout and that is what I got. The course was about 1/2 mile long, with an evil double run-up that was the whole race. Since I can't do run-ups very well, after about 4 or 5 sub 2 minute laps, i gave up and soft pedalled, stopped and talked to people, took a 1 dollar Priem from the Husla and just had fun trying different lines. The official results had me dead last and 3 laps down, although I am quite sure I was dead last and about 8 laps down. I did win a sweet pair of Scott Usa uber pimp carbon road shoes, that fit Lyna perfectly. Good times.

This photo stolen from Flahute, I like it cause it actually looks like I'm trying.

The A category was small and would of been bigger if several who should of raced in it did. The B category was too big and too many people were in the wrong category.

Sorry, but true.

Sunday was the best, met Ty, Carl, Jen and Shannon at Guardsmans, road up puke hill, down the Crest (Carl took off down Mill D) Down to the canyons on Mid Mountain, Up Powerline and back to guardsmans. @25 miles, nice pace in about 2:45. The trail was buff, the air cool, the sky blue, the leaves are changing and the DH was a blast.

Up Powerline

We ran into Aaron Jordan on the spine, later Shannon mentioned something to me, hmmm.

It seems Team Porcupine-Specialized is actually becoming a Mtb-CX team, what with Rico, the Cottles, Chris B, Michelle H., Pietrzak, Caveman. Dave and Mike seem to be the only true roaders left, cept Dave races CX too.

That and Shannon says he always sees Aaron on the trail.

thatsa-Nice

Rollin

After short discussions with BartMan over the last 2 seasons and further discussions with the mechanic yesterday I took the plunge. I took these sweet ass rims I go last year.

And these sweet ass clinchers I got last year.I removed the tube and the mr tuffy. I took 2 new MTB Tubes, cut them apart to make a seal on the rim and a rubber on rubber connection, added some stans, had Ty and mechanic help get the bead over the rim and presto chango....

Ghetto Tubular. They are holding air and ready to roll.

We will see how it all works out.

alive

So for Bart, Rico, The Wolfe and Brandon.

When we got home, Lyna played around with that thing a bit more. I was putting groceries away and heard her say. "I bought something that doesn't work.... OUUUUCCCCHHHHHH, OH MY GOD, it works.

Good times.

ZING

What is it?

For me it is that feeling of having good legs for the race/ride. Last Sunday at the Brian Head national, prior to the flat tires, I had no ZING. Saturday riding the cross monster on the shoreline and around town, I had ZING. Sunday riding the Scalpel on the same trails I had no ZING.

Funny thing about ZING is that it is only slightly faster than no ZING. But it feels good. ZING is the feeling you want on race day. No ZING is the feeling I don't want on race day.

I would rather have ZING and come in 5th place than have no ZING and come in first. ZING is happy. No ZING is sad.

ZEN

Politics

Community organizing is how ordinary people respond to out-of-touch politicians and their failed policies.

- David Plouffe


Yes, I get spam from him cause I added a few bucks to the money machine cause I am a LIBERAL (oh heavens)

1.00.55

Yep, that was my time back from the, winner of my 6 person category, whoopppeeee.

I made it almost all the way through a season without any mechanicals or DNF's. I had the same spare tube in my seat bag all season. No broken chains, no broken body, nothing. That is one heck of a streak.

They started the 35-39, 40-44, 45-49 group together, so we had a pack of @ 20 going up the road to heaven. I tucked myself in about mid pack and halfway up the pavement when the group split, I was with the front group. I dangled off on the dirt road climb, but I did not want to light any matches in the first 30 minutes of the race. I caught Racer on the Louder DH and we went up the sidney peaks road together working a bit together.  I could see the lead group less than a minute up. Up the steep single track racer was on my wheel and the lead group was still just a bit up the trail. We traversed at 10500 feet for awhile and came to the Dark Hollow descent, I was looking forward to this for some reason. I hit the first 2 switch backs just right and felt that would set the tone for the tech sections ahead.   Halfway down the first tech section I hit a rock straight to the rim of the rear tire. I kept going,  ripping it up, although I felt the rear getting soft. I pulled over in the meadow before the road descent and felt it, still about 2 pounds, I then stopped at the road and filled up a bit with CO2. I then hit the Road DH pretty fast and went into the technical One track with speed.  I passed 2 riders on the inside of 2 sketchy, tight switchbacks.  I made it halfway down the dark rocky section, once again I felt the tire going soft.   I stopped to top off the tire again and bent the valve core, so I then put the tube in, only to find its valve core bent. I got some air in the tube, but I was out.  I waited until Newby came by a few minutes later and he threw me a CO2. I filled up and was on my way.   Made it through the rest of the gnar and just onto the soon to be smooth one track when all the air left the tube. I was at this point about as far from the finish line as possible. I started walking, walked for 45 some odd minutes.  Where I was walking was a fast rolling one track descent, so people were going way too fast to even ask for a tube or air. Finally right before the scout camp, Monique saved me with a tube and a big air. I put like 50 pounds in the tire and took off to the finish. I figured I may as well finish the damn thing.  I bonked pretty hard about 2 miles from the finish, since I was out there an hour longer than expected. I got 6th.  Everybody was getting ready to send a search party for me.

My race plan was to keep the leaders in sight, DH fast, catch the leaders at scout camp and ride with them through mosquito lane and attack on the gravel road climbs to the finish. ALl was going to plan, until my rookie move of not filling my tires with stans the week before the race blew it all. Oh well. It was a good weekend any way. We expected armageddon weather for the race and got 60 degrees and sunny.

Carson won 35-39, Racer got 2nd, Newby 4th. Monique took 1st in women Expert women 30-39 and took 2nd in the series.  Erika had an awesome first Pro weekend.  Alex killed it for top 10, BZ did well more results can be found at mtbracenew.com.  

Kathy and Chris stopped by the Parowan house on their way to vacation,  so we all headed to Cedar for dinner.

Bobby need sleepy.