and I froze my ass

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I was able to escape the office early yesterday to go for an afternoon ride. It was a lovely 48 degrees, the sun was shining, and it was officially my first ride in long sleeves and tights. I took a new route through town and then hit the hills. Climbing was a sweat fest going up and a lesson in hypothermia on the way down. It ended up being about 30 miles total but I felt like I'd ridden a double century. The first ride in the cold always kicks my ass and zaps my motivation to the point where I want to hang up the bike till May...but alas I always climb back on and chances are it will be an even colder day and I'll probably enjoy myself.



Here's some mood music, courtesy of stevil over at ahtbm. Rock!

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Have a great weekend...and if you're out at the 'Basin or Loveland, I'm jealous as hell!

Speechless...

Think about this:
Here's something that's not going to brighten your day. Matter of fact it may just ruin it, but I feel that I need to put this out there. http://www.tucsonbikelawyer.com/heavy/.

it's the end of the season as we know it.

Wow, first one in 3 months... get comfy and open a Hamm's.

I've been riding my bike to work all summer and it's been awesome. There's no easier way to get in some base miles than just commuting by bike. A Monday thru Friday commute allowed me 100 extra miles a week and with that came a fast and fit summer. Sure, you're increasing your odds of running into the angry motorist and the mess that that can bring, but keep your eyes on your surroundings, always throw the first punch, and you'll be fine.

Next up, Tour de France. I'll just leave it to this. Though I wish they inserted this line from Rocky MCMXLMCII or whatever the hell one it was.

This one's going on the wall . Right next to Team Work and Motivation.

Ever wonder if bike thieves get caught in the act? Well, here it is NYC style.

Links to get you through the work week:

decoration is good

stevil is god

bored on monday nights?

And to prove once and for all that winning IS indeed everything:

until we meet again, enjoy the ride.

talk

Holy shit, did Garmin actually win something? I have no idea what the Delta Tour Zeeland is, but it appears that they finally got a win.

Valverde won the Dauphine today and will probably be suspended for being a "Top Fuel" athlete any day now. Italy has already banned him and it looks as if the UCI is going to follow suit. Due to the TDF crossing into Italy, he can't ride it without running the risk of getting arrested as soon as be crosses the border. Which reminds me, why do individual countries have the power to say who can ride and who cannot? What really does the UCI do besides come up with some bullshit rules about bike weight and time trail bar design? It seems like sanctions should be handed out by the governing body, not a country holding a grudge.

Wow 3 hours of cycling on Versus today. That means 1 hour of racing and 2 hours of natural enhancement commercials.

Speaking of TDF, here's the route.

LA has been twitting away about training in Aspen with Levi and Simon Garrens. Simon rides for Cervelo and is Australian, what's he doing in Aspen riding with LA every day?

and now it's raining...strange...it was 80 and sunny.

My new favorite blog: competitivecyclist no bullshit from an industry insider.

and now it's hailing like hell...

Will Tom Danielson ever win anything? Will David Millar ever win anything...other than his countries TT championship and hell while we're at it, will DZ ever win anything other than the US TT championship. I like Garmin but winning seems to be something that they're not good at. If you're a team of time trialist's, wouldn't you think you'd win a TT from time to time...

Any expectations or predictions for the TDF? Will LA finish or will some crazed fan body check him on a climb? Does Evans have any chance in hell? This is what I think, I think Contador and Sastre are going to be scary strong. Sastre showed us a little at the Giro and Contador seemed to be "auditing" the Dauphine. The unknown is going to be VdV and one LA. I think that Astana has a chance of sweeping the podium. The big question mark is LA, is he racing or is he fucking off?

Did anyone else expect to see more of Landis this year? It's been pretty quiet but that's probably a good thing in his eyes.

go for a ride, you'll feel better. Promise.

Rad.

Big Ring Classic

Weekend

So far so good. I had the Friday afternoon group ride with the gang. I felt pretty good, I yo-yo'd a bit but was holding my own until I flatted...and then chased for 10 miles to get back on. I never did and I took about 10 wrong turns...which pushed my mileage up to about 50. No worries though, I got back to Red Eye and replenished some carbs (read: drank heavily).

Got up early on Saturday morning to check out the Giro coverage. I started watching on Universal Sports before the commentary started. The feed was brilliant but the odd thing was that they just had open mikes on the motorcycles, so all you heard was an intermittant word or two of Italian and the "whoosh-whoosh-whoosh" of a TT bike going by. Eventually the commentary came on and it was a great race to watch. I'm looking forward to watching it and you can't beat the price.

According to velonews, Universal Sports signed a 4 year deal to broadcast the Giro and according to that article, they might be showing a lot more cycling in the future. (I think the line about being a "couch potatoes network" was aimed at Versus.) I'm already a fan, as there isn't a commercial every 2 minutes and when there is a commercial it's not for "natural male enhancement." Anyway, have fun this weekend. Check out the Giro, wear your helmet, and try to get someone hooked on bikes.

The best T-shirt ever, get it here.

If you wanna hang out...

D-U-M-B

pic courtesy of velonews