I'm posting more now than I have in the last few weeks. Must be the cold or maybe the fact that it's dark at 6:30 or just the fact that I have nothing better to do. Probably a combination of all 3 with emphasis on the last.

With the call of snow. Yep the S word, goes well with the F word. Not that F word, flurries in the forecast I figured I better enjoy the pavement while I can still see it. At least we are not getting the up to 20cm of snow that my friends in Ottawa are getting. Suckas!!!!

The wind has been nuts the last couple days and temperatures just above the freezing mark I headed for the hills. At least with climbing there is a lower windchill. The intensity level is pretty low right now and I have been enjoying it. Headed out towards Vasey line and the long way into Coldwater. This is a great route with rolling hills and a couple long climbs. I also rode past the new house. I know I'm a little ahead of myself since I have yet to see a sold sign on this house yet. AWWW the new projects. 2 hours of pavement was all my fingers and toes could handle.

A project on the go is my 1994 Gardini road bike. I bought the frame off my sister a couple years ago and had yet to do anything with it. At first I started to set it up as a fixed gear and did get a few rides on it but then it went back to collecting dust. Well it's under full out construction now.

Building it as a 1x9 with 42 tooth up front and a 12-25 rear. This will be my crap weather bike. Friction shifter linked to a Sram x-9 means shifting will never be a problem. A set of Mavic Aksiums will still keep the bike pretty quick and with good ol steel construction the ride will be smooth. Brakes and levers are in transit from Georgian Cycle. It's a pretty pimped out bike for what it's going to be used for. I'll get a few pictures up once it's finished.





I did manage to amuse a couple cows on my ride. Made me feel special. Time to get the shovels ready. Arg

Later

Should have listened to myself

After a great ride the day before. 3 hours endurance in the trails is always a great ride I attempted to do the next best thing. I planned on riding a mix of rail trail, road, grass fields and some sort of trail. Why, to keep my minimal amount of Cylocross skills in check.

Well the best thought out plans can go south real quick when Mother nature is in a pissy mood. I don't know who mad her made this time but she has some cruel ideas.

I left the house and the weather looked questionable but hey it was the same yesterday. I think the worst thing I did was delay my start time. All morning the sun fought to come out.

Just ride I thought. After the quote from Andrew that riding the trainer in October was just wrong what could I do. Maybe listened to myself??? The first 45 minutes were great, running the bike path then cruising the shoreline of Georgian Bay. The cross bike does have it's perks.

Good things come to an end. In a matter of 30 seconds I went from being warm and dry to soaked and cold. The wind picked up and the rain came down so hard that I couldn't wear my glasses. Then came the hail. Ya. A Canadian drive-by with Mother Nature throwing up gangsta signs.

My endurance ride changed to survival mode. Head down and taking the quickest route back to the house. Hmmm that trainer looked really good at this point.

Part of this ride was to keep me ready for a possible attempt of the Barrie Cycling Club's cross this weekend. It's going to be a last minute decision.

Fall riding in Ontario can be alot of fun. Ok let me rephrase that fall trail riding in Ontario can be very interesting. Pretty much all the leaves are down which means finding the trail can be tough. I've been trying to get as much trail time in before the evils of winter come knocking.

Of course the weather report for this weekend was supposed to be crap and I had the first session on the trainer planned for today. I can deal with rain during the spring when I'm getting close to race form but riding in the cold and wet in the fall really doesn't excite me to much. Yep, being wimpy about suffering

Well procrastination paid off. The clouds cleared and the phone rang. This all happened about 20 minutes before I jumped on the hamster wheel. Andrew basically yelled at me for even thinking about not riding outside today. Well I did get my revenge. Loaded the car, the Molly Monster and the full suspension up and headed down to Andrew's place. Tom's forest was the playground for the day.

Now about my revenge on Andrew. So I am far from any type of fashion guru, hell I think jeans, t shirt and sandals are dressing up BUT I do know that you never wear socks and sandals while wear shorts. Now this just takes it to the next level.
Rubber boots and spandex has Walmart written all over it. I was actually hoping he was going to wear them while riding.

Anyways the trails were great. Just under 3 hours of strictly singletrack is so good for the soul. We cut over to the 7th line grid but were shut down pretty quick. They are logging this section and trying to track the trail was almost impossible. The rest of the trails off the 8th line were in great shape. Alot of planning for the 2009 race season happened during this ride. I know way to early to be planning for next year but that's just me.

Of course my other training partner had a great run. I tired dog is a happy dog.

Tomorrow is another day to play.

Later

Ummm

I think this video says it all. You can use what ever language you would like to describe it.


I really didn't feel like playing in it tonight so my road ride was put off.

On the home front, offer has been signed and if things go well there should be a sold sign in my front year with in the week. That also means a sold sign on the new house. I'm getting a little excited now, just a little.

LSD is not a drug

It's that time again, time for my fix. Now like all junkies, they begin to migrate together. Yep, new training partner and with both have the same dealer. The biggest bonus of this is who it is I'm training with. Andrew has seen the podium many times in 24 hour events and is a great marker for me to gauge off. We are on the same training schedule since we both enjoy having Heather beat the crap out of us.

Today was the Big Chute loop. Still probably my favorite road ride in the Midland area. The weather was a typical fall day. Plus 12, awww you know winter is coming when we have to start saying plus since the numbers are getting low. The sun was shining, thats all that mattered.

We pretty much had the roads to ourselves today. Fall riding in cottage county. 3.5 hours later we rolled back into my place. My legs are feeling really good right now. On the non training side of things my house has been a hot spot this last week. Offers are starting to come in, if things continue I will hopefully be packing in the very near future.

That's it, no video right now

Later

24 hour training for 2009??? Sorta

Had a package delivered today. No inflate-a-dates, no pink flamingos, no whoopee cushions. For those wondering, all of the above is on my Christmas list. This was a good package though. My first round of Infinit arrived today and I had a ride planned for the evening. Perfect time to try things out. I've been really excited about this stuff. I'm just using the ready mix 5 hour training mix for the time being. Heather and I will figure out the mix for 24 hour races in a few months. Lets just say that I really like it. Light taste which is fantastic. I hate overkill flavour because it has a tendency to kill the taste buds and when it's warm, well lets not go there. My wonderful stomach had zero problems which also has me very very happy. This is one part of prep for next season. The other is basic training. I've been riding with Heather (the slave driver) when I can. Gives us lots of time to plan and also keeps me riding sane. It also gave me a chance to play with my new toy.
Picked up a new mini video camera, neat little toy. Ok back to the tonight's adventure. It was play time in Tom's forest. It's a great place to do some fun base rides. Of course this is when you can see. We left at 5:20 with 2 loops planned. As you can see above, the trails are in great shape. This was a rare clear section, most were leaf covered. Either way we could see. The fun of fall riding is the fact that you can do a night ride without waiting till 10 pm. Or in this case 7 pm. As we finished up the second loop the light disappeared quickly. Yes I have lights, so does Heather, They seem to work better if you bring them with you. I think Heather's had a little plan with tonight. I love night riding and I usually don't slow down very much when the night laps come. Well here is the new master plan. I will ride my night laps in stealth. I can sneak up on my competition and pass them without ever being seen. Of course this means practice of riding blind and using the force. Yes we are riding in this video.
By the time we got back to the car this idea was pretty much sent to the bottom of the prep list. Back to the original plan of slashing everyones tires at the start line.

Wow, hard to believe that I'm already thinking about 2009.

Time to eat some carrots, just in case the tire slashing thing fails.

Later.

Not much exciting going on. I put my whole off season in over the last 5 days. Now it's back to business. The bonus side of this is that fall riding is amazing. Spent 3 hours playing in Tom's forest riding with my coach. No intervals, no hill repeats, no wanting to vomit at the end of the ride, for now at least. Just cruising.

Heather and I got a chance to talk about next seasons plans. Also about the hellish works outs I'll be doing on the computrainer. Great, I can't wait.

Unfortunately my camera is M.I.A. so no pictures.

That's it that's all. Enjoy your turkey, I know I am.

Later

keeping your food for thought cold

I'm getting off the bike and up on a soap box for a few minutes. Being a cyclist being aware of the environment is something that just follows along hand in hand. Hey we need someplace to ride don't we. Now as you know I own a major appliance service company. Yep I fix things like fridges. This little shout out is about the Great Refrigerator Round Up that our has been going for the last year. What do I think?

It's bullshit. Don't do it, keep your fridge. Here is why. It is the most shorted sights pile of crap I've heard when it comes to saving power. Yes your fridge uses electricity, guess what so do the new ones. So here is why you should keep your fridge going.

First, they will only pickup fridges that are still working. HMMM ok so that means they want you to throw something out that is still good. Yep sounds like a government run program.

Second, your old fridge may use a little bit more power than a new one. Say 20 cents a month more, now I wonder how much power it takes to mine the minerals to make the steel frame and components and what about the factory that makes the refrigerant. Oh what about the plastic factories that are need to make the shelves and liners. I guess there needs to be a factory to that has to put it all together. Oh ya one more thing, what about disposal of your old working fridge?

If you want to make you fridge working efficiently, keep it full. Empty space changes temperature very quickly, an empty fridge will work harder. I've noticed there have been alot of these commercials for "every kilowatt counts" lately. Phantom loads etc. Fluorescent bulbs, at least they are finally making ones without mercury now. They are trying to persuade you to buy all this energy saving stuff and toss all that power sucking product in the garbage. Where is the power savings??? I always thought that shutting off the light switch when you're not in the room was the best way to save power. Fixing things is always better than throwing it out and buying a new one.

Not to sound like a conspiracy nut but do you wonder if maybe Hydro One doesn't want to spend any money and update their power grid so there are no power concerns. Hey if you conserve all this power but yet your rates continue to go up and Hydro 1 doesn't need to change a thing. Hmmm sounds like a good business plan. For some strange reason it doesn't seem to stop all the township buildings from leaving their lights on all night. Oh ya stick it on the little guy.

Alright I'm stepping off the soapbox before someone kicks it out from under me. Bike stuff, not much, LSD rides. Heather has me heading back to the gym, my favorite place. Will play at the Barrie cross race in a couple weeks from now. Should get some good rides in this weekend. Gotta burn off that turkey.

Later.

decisions of the day.

It was really really tempting. I'm still wondering if that would have been the better decision. I decided to try Peter's method of racing. In a hung over state at 7:45 am I swore a couple times, filled the travel mug with very strong coffee and put the cross bike on the roof. Destination, the Hillbilly Hustle Cross.

This was my first attempt at cross. I did watch a few clips on youtube a couple days just to get an idea of what I was in for. I'd already decided I'd race in Master 3, knew a few people in this division from O-cup and figured the last thing I needed to hear was sandbagger by racing in beginner.

Thanks to Mark Matthews for babysitting the Molly Monster and grabbing some photos. I was a little later getting to the venue than planned but managed to get a bit of a warm up in. Sitting in the start loop I was very content to start at the back. Before the race I got a few tips about staying with the lead pack because gaps are hard to bridge. Ok no worries, tuck in the group for a lap or two then see how things feel. Great race plans last about 10 seconds in my life.

After a few words of be nice to me I'm new and a few return comments of hope you brought lube since they all planned to hurt me we were off. After the abuse I took from Paul's Dirty Enduro I really didn't want to be abused again. As mentioned my race plan lasted about 10 seconds. Heading up the start climb I'm sitting on first wheel witha gap already spreading to the other riders. Now I thought I rode the whole course in warm up, not even close. We head around the school bus where there was a picnic table full of empties, flashbacks to the night before. We come into a short little singletrack section next thing you know I'm leading.

In through the downhill section I'm now pulling away. Yep there goes the game plan completely. Coming into the uphill barriers and remembering what I saw on tv I continued to spread the gap. I'm thinking hey this is not that bad.


Finished the first lap feeling good, then I blew up. There is no rest in Cyclocross. Usually at this amount of time into a XC race I've hit a couple singletrack sections where I recover, on the road I can tuck in the pack and catch a draft. Not out here. Halfway through the 2nd lap I got caught by a guy from Bikesports. I thought that might be a good thing so I had someone to try and pace off but he rode past me like I was one of the barriers. This lap really hurt but this is also my normal feeling in a race. The next lap and a half I kept a steady pace. I kept looking over my shoulder.

I now realize why you don't see battle cages on most cross bikes, it's impossible to drink. My legs started to come back on the 4th lap and I started to figure out where I can recover on the course. The hurt started to be a fun hurt. The really cool thing about cross is how spectator friendly the course is. People don't have to move far to cheer everyone on in different parts of the course.

Coming into the final lap I pushed as hard as I could. Roughly 10 minutes left and I can fall over and die. One more time up the hill and I'm done. I crossed the line in 2nd place. I was pretty stoked about that. Oh and I'm now hooked on this abusive sport. I'm going to race one more race in M3 just to gain a bit more experience then I'll move up to M2 and see how it goes.

Some of the other highlights of the day. Brett Matthews took 3rd in his first ever cross race. Looks like his Dad will be buying another bike from him. Brett's still representing the MCC but will be riding for JetPower next season also. This kid is getting really fast.

In the Elite division it was a battle of the best. Andrew Watson who is the defending Hillybilly Champion would be defending his title against Mike Garrigan who is the current National Champion. Watching these guys hammer the course was awesome. Mike ended up tweaking a wheel on the 2nd lap when he tried to bunnyhop a barrier, this is when Andrew passed him and never looked back. A bike change for Mike but the damage was done. Andrew continued to put about 30 seconds in Mike every lap and held on to his crown for another year.

Round 2 of the day was the Mountainview Race the Night that turned to a ride the night. It was a disappointment that the event was cancelled. We still have 10 people show for the ride.

Lee explaining the theory on atom splitting???

Are those aliens in the woods?

Greg doing his first ever night ride, I think he is hooked.

I played on the singlespeed for the first time. Lots of fun, kept trying to shift gears on the hills. Today is a day of rest, recovery and maybe that plate of bacon.

More pics from the cross race later.

I'm not the only one!!!

I guess I'm not the only one who has slowed down on the riding. This was a action packed weekend that has turned into a minor attraction. This was supposed to be the first stage of two wheel excitement.

http://www.ontariocycling.org/web_pages/news1/newslisting.php?id=1897

Of course I'm not sure if I'm going to go and play yet. Was out on the cross bike seeing if I liked some minor changes I made in setup. Of course I didn't so I have a little work to do but the other thing that showed was how unhappy my legs seemed on the hills. It's going to be a 7 am decesion.

Next up was supposed to be Race the Night at Mountainview. Because of low pre registration Thomas was forced to cancel it. Now it's become Ride teh Night which means grab those lights and come out for a spin and eat some grub after wards. I'll be going for sure. http://www.mountainviewmidland.com/race_the_night.htm

Last but not least was the Ontario Enduro Championships. http://www.bikenxs.com/ Same as what happened to RTH. Low numbers meant the cancelation. I was going to skip this regardless but it was a little bit of a shock when I saw the post.

So why the low nubmers? One it's been completely crappy the last week with nothing but rain and wind. Oh and cold. the other thought is that it's been a really long season and there havce been alot of back to back to back events. Everyone is tired? I know I am. Of course the weather and the fact its dark at 7 pm gives me the craving to crawl into bed and sleep till spring.

As for the home front. My house has just hit the market. Price is great and hopefully leads to a quick sell. The MLS # is 20082464 buy me buy me. Tenant included if wanted.

There will either be a race report from the Hillbilly Cross and Ride the Night or there will be a picture of a plate of bacon (seems to work for Big Ring)

Later

ummm way to much for a title

So much going on that I don't know where to start. So the line of the day "I am officially done racing for 2008 except for the 5-6 cross races and the night race and the ??, let me rephrase that i am officially done training. I'm still going to play in some short races but if I get on the bike it will be for fun. No zone training, no hill repeats, no making myself puke with intervals. All play time.

Of course this is all at great timing. It looks like I will be moving, Have a conditional offer in on a house and my place has now hit the market. The decision on being a landlord while living a little distance away was pretty easy. I don't have enough time. The new house is amazing and has everything that I want. Fingers are crossed. Of course when better to move than during the off season, couldn't imagine doing it during peak training.

So speaking of next season I'm happy to introduce a new sponsor and one that has me really excited. So of course nutrition during races has always been a bit of a problem for me. Eating is hard to do. Well this will eliminate this problem.

I'll be using INFINIT for 2009. For those that have never heard of them, you need to check out there site. This is custom designed sport drink. If you are a sweat monster you can adjust the sodium accordingly, same with calories, protein, carbs and can even add the caffeine kick. Yep, no more cans of coke. There are premixed packages also which range from short races to recovery. They also design drinks for just about every other sport.

Yep, no more gels, cans of cokes, attempts on eating bars. One thing I like is that I can control the taste without adjusting the other levels. Full strength recommendations from most companies is pretty intense and they all seem to taste like crap once they are warm. Of course me and my wonderful stomach (which many of you have heard at the start line) will be very happy. No thinking just drinking. Works for me!!!!

Alright back to cleaning my house. There is summer clean, winter clean and then comes sell the house clean. I like the first two, the last one, no comment.

Later