Euskaltel-Euskadi
Normally I would consider any sort of organization that only permits people from a certain ethnic background to be elitist at best. However I make an exception for the Euskaltel-Euskadi cycling team.
For those of you who do not know, Euskaltel-Euskadi is a UCI ProTour cycling team from the Basque region of Spain. Their "A" level sponsors are a Basque telephone company (Euskaltel) and the Basque government (Euskadi).
So why do I like this? Why do I make them the exception to the rule? I do so because I respect what they are doing for cycling in Spain. As far as I can tell they're not attempting to be racist in how they operate. For one, they are not declaring that they are supreme because they are Spanish, instead their mission is to improve cycling in Spain.
I also like they support more than just cyclists from their country/region, they also support and publicize business that relate to cycling from their area. They ride Orbea bikes, made in the Basque Country, wear Etxe-Ondo apparel also from the Basque region and wear Catlike helmets from Yelca.
Above all, though, is their dedication to training young riders from Spain (mainly Basque Country) in order to improve the general quality of cycling in Spain. There are other teams that do this: Garmin-Transitions has a u23 team called Team Holowesko Partners and Radio Shack has one called Trek-LIVESTRONG. However Euskaltel-Euskadi is specifically for Spanish riders and only for Spanish riders. It amazes me the level of commitment they have. Even beyond the crazy fans:
The region's government sees it worth while to support this team. This is a breath of fresh air in a time where public organizations seem to become more and more indifferent about supporting endurance sports and investing in their own future.
Book Report: “French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France” by Tim Moore
This is a review of the book French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France by Tim Moore.
I checked this book out of the library with very low expectations. It looked like a joke and quite honestly that's what it was.
I read about 5 chapters of it and decided to research what other people had to say about it. A lot of people made reference to being stylistic similar to Bill Bryson's writing style. This helped me understand the intentions of the author a lot better.
I'll start with the positive aspects of the book. I really admired Moore's goal to conquer the route of the Tour de France. Even if it's only part of the route or even something similar to the route. That is an extremely large goal to undertake, quite honestly much more thank hiking the Appalachian Trail, as Bryson did.
The text seems to reflect that he prepped for this trip much in the same way that Bryson prepared for his trip down the Appalachian Trail. He did a little bit of research, bought a mid-range bike, took a spinning class and rode down the street once on the bike. Even with these minimal preparations, I will give him credit for seeking advice from people that know, at least moderately, what they're talking about. Even if he only listened to about half of the advice.
The journey started off on the wrong foot. He had trouble getting his bike into the country, he had trouble getting his bike onto the train, he had trouble getting the tour route even after the route had been released.
Impressively when he was able to get moving on a route that was somewhat like the Tour route he actually rode pretty well. I found the way that he described his amateurish mistakes and mishaps entertaining. Additionally I liked the way that he went into some interesting history about the Tour, telling stories that I never heard and going into details I had not heard for stories that I did know.
On the negative side the guy is a complete narcissist. Even though the book is about him, he still is obsessively absorbed in himself. Second only to himself, he seems to have a strong sense of pride in his country and really dislikes how things are done in rural France. He cuts down a majority of the places that he stays. In a lot of situations he is downright rude to the staff at the restaurants that he eats at and the hotels that he stays at.
Finally he possesses a strong need for recognition. Don't get me wrong, what he did was no small feat, but the way that the novel reads suggests that he was just short of screaming at people, "Look at me! I'm riding the Tour de France route, aren't I the bomb?!"
The worst part of the whole experience is that, in the end, the experience is not in the least bit life changing. He goes back to his old life style, watches the tour but doesn't ride his bike anymore. He doesn't even seem to have any interest in it nor in fitness in general.
To me it seems as though the negative aspects of this book far outweigh the positive aspects. However the strangest part of this books is that I couldn't put it down. Even though there were a lot of things that I really disliked I read the it through cover to cover. I give him a lot of credit, he is a really good writer. It takes a lot to write a book that I read through even if I don't like the content.
In summary I generally liked this book. I'm not sorry that I read it and I definitely don't think that I wasted my time. With that said, I'm not certain that I would recommend buying it. It is definitely worth a read if you don't have to lay down any money for it, but I'm only going to read it once and feel no need to make it a permanent part of my personal library.
Running?!
I recently started running. Yes running. This is surprising to me because I have hated running for as long as I can remember.
I started running because I wanted to lose enough weight to feel comfortable enough to get back on my bike. Last year I severely indexed my headset on my beater bike putting me in a situation where I would have to undergo a costly repair or stop riding the bike. It was ok with me since I was feeling light enough to be on my good bike. When winter came around I entered a really bad migraine cycle and gained a bunch of weight.
I decided that I needed to lose some weight, but I always need exercise in addition to improving my eating habits in order to drop the pounds. I knew that cycling, for the short term was out, I didn't want to strain the carbon fiber parts of my good bike with the amount that I weigh. I couldn't use my elliptical because it was in need of repairs, plus I didn't want to be stuck in the basement half the summer.
Being that I was cornered I had a crazy thought. Maybe I should start running. I had that same thought last year, attempted the couch to 5k program and after two days I had serious joint pain in my knees and stopped before it could escalate further. However this year I decided to try a lower impact form of running, I decided to start trail running.
Thus far the outcome has been phenomenal. I've been running for just over a month I feel great and I've lost 11 lbs. I've had absolutely no joint pain whatsoever. All in all it has been a huge success. Additionally I'm excited because in another 11 lbs I will be at the weight I was at when I started gaining weight last fall and will feel comfortable being on my bike.
Like I had said, I initially started running just to get back on my bike. A strange thing happened after about two and a half week, I discovered that I actually like trail running. I like it so much so that I will continue to mix it into my workout schedule when I'm light enough to be on my bike.
Have I Matured?
Have I matured as a cycling fan? When I was a kid I was only interested in Olympic cycling. It's understandable because that's all was exposed to. Late in my college life I became a lot more interested in cycling in general, both as a sport and as entertainment. I was interested in things that were popular in the US, mainly le Tour de France, Lance Armstrong, Davis Phinney, Andy Hampsten, and Bobke.
I have slowly become interested in more races. Most of which were in late June or early July. Ok basically this meant the Tour and the Dauphine, not much progress. I definitely knew that there were other races but I didn't follow them. In fact the only one that I was really certain of was the Giro d'Italia, and all that I knew about that was that it was in May.
This year I have found myself being more interested in other races. I actually knew what weekend some of the classics were going on and on top of this I have actually been following the Giro. I'm getting interested in it to the point where I will watch an Italian only video feed since there is little to no live coverage in the US.
I will admit that I'm still not quite to the point where I go crazy catching all of the spring classics, nor am I drinking gin and playing trombones in the fall (cyclocross) but I'm getting there.
So to answer the question: Have I matured? The answer is definitely no, but I'm getting there.
Thunderstorm
There was a day last week that I really wanted to go on a ride, but it looked bad out. A lot of times I will fool myself into riding on a day like this by convincing myself that it's only sprinkling and the rain is about to stop. That way if I leave before the real rain hits I can say that it wasn't pouring when I left and it was a perfectly sensible decision to continue on.
This was one of those days. It had started to sprinkle while I was getting ready. Once I was all ready I went into the garage and was going to get on my bike when I realized I had forgotten my mobile phone and my keys. I knocked on the door until my wife let me in to get them. I hadn't realized it, but she had just asked the kids to come in off the swing set because it was thundering.
As I grabbed my keys and phone my daughter said to me, "You can't go on a bike ride, it's thundering!" She was right, but I didn't want to admit it. I told her that I would be fine, went out to the garage, hopped on my bike and rode off. By this time the rain had risen to a steady drizzle and seemed to be increasing. For some reason I still thought that I could beat out the storm. I kept going, in fact I got about three to four miles into my 13 mile ride before the rain really started pouring down. Then came the lightening and the thunder.
It was raining hard, but I had ridden through worse. I really don't like to ride with lightening, so I wasn't happy about this. I decided to cut my ride short by about 5 miles. I turned off at one of the alternate routes that I use in such cases. The rain let up a little and I made for home as fast as I safely could given that my brakes do now work as well in the rain.
When I was coming around the final turn to my house I looked up and saw the darkest thunderhead that I had seen in a long time. I sprinted for my house and got there about two minutes before the skies really opened up. There was some really close lightening with this storm too. I was soaked, my bike needed to be cleaned and re-greased, in general I wasn't angry (I had brought this upon myself), but I wasn't happy either.
Right after I got changed and was dried off, the rain cleared and the sun came out. It would have been a beautiful time to get out for a ride. The skies were clear, the humidity was low, and everything was generally calm. At that moment I suddenly thought back to what my daughter said, thought that I should have listened to her all along.
Why My Wife Is Cool (Part 1)
My wife told me yesterday that I don't have enough entries in my blog about how cool my wife is. After being married 6.5 years I have learned to pick up on these very subtle hints. So here is one of the large number of reasons why Cindy is really cool:
Not many people would allow me to perform maintenance on my bikes in the family room!
Speed Wobble
I mentioned that I made 3 rides out of the 10 I planned on vacation. The second ride I ended up riding on Rt 3, South-East of the 30/3 split, following this route:
Rt 3 is very hilly compared to Rt 30 that I had ridden the day before. Given the fact that I am out of shape and a lot heavier than I had been last time I was riding this area. Because of this I do not like to just drop down hills and I end up braking most of the way down the hill. In order to be safe about the braking I alternate between the front and rear brakes so that neither of the rims will heat up to much for a blowout.
While I was braking I realized that I was not slowing myself down enough to be at my comfort level. At this point I started hitting the brakes a little harder. On a particularly steep part of the hill I noticed a strange vibration in my bike. This vibration felt a lot different than I was used to. I decided to look down and realized that my front wheel was vibrating very hard on the outer part of the rim.
This scared me. Really, really badly.
Not only did I think I was going to fall, I was worried about how I would fall. If I fell I would either have the choice of falling into Rt 3 or the other direction into a wire barricade that would keep me from falling down a very steep hill side.
Rt 3 at this point has a 55 mph speed limit and is highly traveled. Almost certain that I was going over, I unclipped and got ready to go down. Fortunately at the last second the vibration stopped. I was able to regain control of my bike. It took me a long time to stop shaking from this event. I came to a complete stop to regain my composure.
I was initially going to stop at a junction called Indian Pass however I decided to going down a road called Corey's and take some time on a slower road with very little traffic.
I couldn't stop thinking about what could have happened to me. I had just bought a new wheel set from a friend of mine. The friend is an excellent mechanic, so I had no reason to doubt the wheels. They were true and stiff with deep rims. Even knowing this, I felt as though something just wasn't right with them. When I got back and checked them and I noticed some side to side play in the hub.
I decided to take the wheel set to Placid Planet Bicycles just to be safe. When I got there I showed on of the mechanics the wheels. The mechanic told me the wheels to said that there was a little in the hub, but it wasn't enough to worry about. He said that he would tighten them up and I took him up on it.
After he was done I told him what had happen on that descent. He told me that it was a phenomena called speed wobble. Then he told me what causes it and how to fix it. What I found particularly interesting is that he even knew my bike (just by me telling him the model) and told me that it was more common because of how the rear triangle had a dropout where the wheel connected to the frame.
After I got back, I put the wheels back on my bike and took it for a ride. The wheel set felt very tight and just how I was used to it. I also made the adjustments to the brakes like the mechanic suggested and the next time I rode, I was much more confident in my bike.
Vacation Goals
We just got back from the Adirondacks for annual our family vacation. I always bring my bike with me. Before I left I made a goal to ride 200 miles. The goal seemed doable for my current fitness level: 10 days, 20 miles a day. I was even more excited because I had hills to ride as well, which is one of the areas that I need improvement.
After 4 days, I was feeling pretty good about my goal. I had ridden two rides of 20 miles and one ride of 40 miles. I missed one day, but I was still on par for my goal. Then day 5 came...nothing. Day 6? nothing, etc.
I was frustrated because I obviously was not going to reach my goal. As the days wore on, I was finding excuses to not ride. Then, one day, I had a few minutes to reflect on the excuses I had been making:
- Day long downpour: not much can be done about this.
- Rode a 40 mile route that I thought was 30: I had the route information wrong. I was really sore the next day. That's fine with me.
- Spent my free time paddling through the Floodwood Loop with some friends: Hey, that's exercise!
- Spent my free time paddling down the Raquette River with my in-laws: Also exercise!
- Spent a day driving through the high peaks with my family: Isn't this why we go on vacation?
It occurred to me that all of these excuses are either exercise related or family related. So I didn't make my goal, but I'm happy with my vacation and I'm only slightly disappointed that I didn't reach my goal.
July is almost over, welcome back freetime.
I spend almost (ok all) of my free time in July keeping up with le tour. It is an interesting addiction because I rarely get to watch a stage for a few reasons:
- The tour is on while I'm at work.
- I don't have cable.
- They only show the tour on cable.
I was extremely happy to see that Versus is now offering a low quality stream for free on their website. This means I spend my Saturday and Sunday mornings glued to a very small video of the most exciting bike race in the world. Sure it's crazy, but it makes complete sense to me and I'm sure to anyone else who follows this race.
On the days that I cannot watch the tour live, I am stuck with watching the video updates on VeloNews and Versus after the fact. I've enjoyed the commentary of Bob Roll and Neil Rogers, each on their respective networks.
What does this mean? Well it means that other than things that are essential for me to do (riding my bike and spending time with my kids for example), I happily give up my evenings to take in the updates and make my own conjecture as to what each team's strategy is for the next day, the day after, and so on.
Although it is bittersweet, the tour comes to an end tomorrow. I am happy about this because it means my free time is back (until late August) and I am not stressed about how my team is performing. However I am also sad because I am done watching this epic event until next year when it starts over again.
Good bye Tour, it has been fun. See you next year.